Filtering issue trying to clear pool

[mitch08]

Hey,

Im trying to help a friend with his pool. He closed very late last year and there are millions of leaves and debris. going through the regular process with bleach for over 5 days now.

The issue is that literally 40 minutes after a backwash, the pressure is through the roof again and the pool needs another backwash. I dont think this is normal behavior from my experience. within 5 minutes there is air in the pump basket. and as time goes on there is more and more air until its barely working and the returns have nothing coming out.

I took the filter apart with him, cleaned it out, put in new DE, and same issue. The water in the 'viewer' doesnt even seem dirty after those 40 minutes. Its clear. It doesnt seem like its needing the backwash other than the horrible pressure.

If we set the pool to recirc, there is no air in the pump basket and everything runs great. Full power and perfect pressure.

Can anyone point me in the right direction on what we should look for next?
The lid looks very tight but I can adjust and lube the ring. Maybe lube the filter ring as well. But Im hesitant to think that would be the cause of complete system failure every 40 minutes like clockwork.

Thanks a million in advance.

 

[JVTrain]

DE is great at filtering. Amazing in fact. However, when dealing with a debris filled pool, that means your pressure will rise rapidly. Because the filter is working as normal on bypass, I would suspect that it's just filtering all the junk out of the pool. That is hard to tell without looking at the water though. Can you post a picture of the pool water now? Did you attempt to clear as much debris as possible manually with a leaf rake until you could literally get nothing else off the bottom of the pool?

 

[mitch08]

Thanks for the quick response. Normally I would agree. But its starting to pull air so quickly that it just seems like something has to be wrong. He did try to remove depris and leaves. But there is a TON of it and he cant see it. So there is still tons in there. But even without agitating the ground and kicking stuff up, 40 minutes is all he gets before its jammed up again.

Ill ask him to send me a pic of the water. But it basically looks like a swamp

 

[kimkats]

Have him buy a Leaf Gulper. They are AWESOME at getting STUFF up and out of the pool.

Kim:cat:

 

[JVTrain]

Have to keep blindly dragging the leaf rake to get as much as possible until it comes up mostly empty. Otherwise it's a losing battle of your bleach being consumed by those organics still lying in there. Raking is "free" while the chlorine is not. It will help filtration in now and going forward.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[mitch08]

Thx all. Ill have him keep at it and hopefully as the gook comes out itll improve