New house -- Old pool equipment help

[mhergy]

Hello, brand new to forum.
I just bought a house with my fiancee and it has large 16x32 old inground pool (with plastic deck coping) roughly 30000 gallons.
The pool itself is probably 25-30 years old, however the equipment my guess is not original. The problem currently is the filter pressure is sky high, over 30psi. After reading a lot of forum posts, I know this to be bad and potentially harmful.
The question how do I fix this?

The pump is a somewhat old looking 3/4 horse, which seems to run fine IMO. I'm always cleaning out debris and keeping the strainer clean, so I don't sense its clogged at all.

However I'm questioning a few things, the hoses look old and lots of clamps. No idea when the sand in the was changed last. I have backwashed it a few times with the pressure not really changing after doing so.

I have purchased a Heyward C4025 cartridge filter and plan on scrapping the sand filter and changing the plumbing to all 2" pvc pipes.

Any tips on how to reduce the psi so I can get by the season with what I currently have?

thanks
Matt

 

[Texas Splash]

Hello and welcome to TFP! Congrats on the new home & pool. For the filter, it may be a couple things. Either the filter needs a good deep cleaning as noted on the Deep Cleaning a Sand Filter page, or perhaps the gauge itself is bad. When you turn the pump off, does the needle go back to zero? It should. If not, you might want to order a new gauge from TFTestkits.net.

Something else that can increase pressure quite a bit is the water quality. Excessive organics can do this, and some of them are not always visible. Make sure you are testing you water with one of the recommended test kits (TF-100 or Taylor K2006C) for best results. In Canada, you may be forced to obtain a Taylor K-2006C unless you have connections back to the states to get a TF-100 (shipping restrictions).

Hope this helps. Nice to have you with us.

 

[Rollercoastr]

Welcome!

I have purchased a Heyward C4025 cartridge filter and plan on scrapping the sand filter

I'm curious about your motivation for the cartridge..?

I'm also in a new-to-me house with older equipment, but I like my big ol' sand filter. I appreciate the versatility of moderate filtering when that's practical. I read about cartridge and DE filters clogging very quickly because they're aggressively filtering lots of contaminants. My bucket of sand on the other hand, didn't need to be babysat while it was pulling lots of dead algae from the pool. When time came for a higher level of filtering, I poured a few cups of DE into the strainer and watched as the water began to sparkle.

Just yesterday I had lunch with a friend who's struggling to balance the cost of new cartridges with the labor and hassle of cleaning his old ones.

It seems to me that sand is the best of both (3) worlds.

 

[mhergy]

Thx Texas I will do those things. My gauge does not go back to zero, I will definitely be getting a new one.

As far as the filter goes, I just found a really really good deal on a 425sqft hayward cartridge filter. To me they seem easier to maintain and clean. I don't want to deal with sand.