DE in the pool

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wellsnlisa

wellsnlisa

0
May 1, 2014
52
Cypress, Texas
Things have been going really well for our pool for the past year so haven't had to post in quite awhile, but now have a small problem. I have always been the one in our household to backwash and take apart and clean our filter grid, being the more mechanically inclined and handy with tools of the two of us. Recently I have been suffering from arthritis and tendinitis in both wrists, so my husband insisted on taking over this chore. He watched YouTube videos, and although I asked him to wait until I could be there to supervise the first time, he went rogue on me and went ahead and did it.

I returned home to a cloudy pool which I told him was DE, but he insisted that he had opened up the filter to check it and everything was fine. It seemed to clear within a couple of days, but I now know it was probably just settling to the bottom. This was three weeks ago. This afternoon I noticed small piles of DE on the bottom of the pool underneath one of the return jets. I opened up the filter ignoring the pain and saw nothing on the grids but dirt, no DE, and of course it was put back together incorrectly.

I hosed off the grids, put everything back correctly and started up the filter again and added the usual 6 cups of DE. I then had my teenage daughter sweep the pool for me to get the DE stirred up to hopefully be pulled through to the filter.

Finally getting to my question. On reflection I am wondering if I should not have added the usual 6 cups. The original 6 cups he added I assume is floating suspended and sitting on the bottom of our pool. As that gets pulled through to the filter will it overload it? Is there anything I should look for such as the pressure rising to know that this has happened? I assume we should sweep daily and not swim until everything looks clear.

Thanks!
Lisa
 
Do you have a manual vacuum? My thought is to not run the pool and let all the DE settle and then gently vacuum the DE with a manual vacuum once it has settled on the bottom. Once the DE is suspended in the water it will take a long time for all of it to make it back to the filter. When you turn on the pool to vacuum make sure the returns are not pointed down because that can stir up the DE.

The next time the filter needs to be backwashed I would take it apart and do a full cleaning to make sure the filter has the proper amount of DE.
 
If you normally use 6 cups when you do a breakdown filter cleaning, you need about 4 1/2 when you just backwash the filter. So I would just watch the filter gauge and backwash and recharge it w/ 4.5 cups ech time the pressure rises, until it's all cleaned up.
 
I use 6 scoops for a backwash, and I believe it is 9 scoops for a breakdown cleaning. Since I broke it down and washed the grids and then just added 6 scoops, it might not be so bad. The filter pressure after cleaning was at 11 or 12. I will watch it until it gets to about 15 and then just do a regular backwash.
 
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