Hayward Perflex EC40 Backwashing

[bsweeney]

Ok, so I've read quite a bit about backwashing my filter. From what I can tell, bumping the handle is a version of backwashing. I am curious if it would be ok to force water "backwards" through the filter and out of the drain as a way to backwash the fingers?

I ask this because I am having a terrible time of either algae or pollen (Our pollen counts have been astronomical this year. After a period of time without the pump running the top of the water is absolutely covered with pollen) collecting on my DE fingers and causing my pressure to raise and very little water to come through the return. I've taken the pump apart twice and manually cleaned the fingers because bumping only works for about an hour. I've even bumped and dumped the DE a couple of times, but it doesn't clean the pollen/algae off of the fingers and after adding new DE (the 4lbs the filter recommends), within a few hours, the pressure is back up on the gauge and there is very little coming out of the return.

So, to make a long story short, I want to know if I am going to cause damage to my filter by plumbing water from the output of the pump, through a diverter valve that goes back to the output of the filter and running the water backwards through the fingers. Obviously I'll open the drain on the filter to allow for the water to be washed out of the filter.

Thanks in advance!
Billy

 

[pwrstrk]

I've run water thru my filter like that with no problems. I turn the suction side valve off and turn the return valve on and let the water flow in that way for a bit.
One thing you can do to help your filter out is put a nylon knee high over your skimmer basket to catch the pollen before it goes to your filter. I use them all the time. It's like a prefilter for the filter. The important thing is to check them often on high pollen days as they will catch a lot of junk and can restrict flow to your pump. ?

 

[Isaac-1]

Something seems wrong here, let us address a few of the fundamentals first.

Bumping is not backwashing, bumping is a system that lets you extend the time between backwashing.

When I backwash my EC-75 I find it helps to cycle through opening and closing the backwash / drain valve a few times to flush the DE out, letting the filter refill and empty with water a few times.

When you are adding the 4 pounds of DE do you weigh it? Those DE scoops are notoriously inaccurate, and overfilling will cause symptoms like you mention. Also Hayward recommends only using pool DE on these filters and warns against the use of DE substitutes.

The 4 pounds for filling should only be done after a complete breakdown and cleaning, if you have backwash/flushed the old DE out withou breaking down the manually cleaning the fingers there will still be some DE left in the system so you should reduce your DE recharge to about 3.5 pounds.

Ike