I switched to cellulose from DE at the beginning of this season. Overall, I'm very pleased with the decision, but there are downsides to fiber in my experience. For one, my filter clogs much more frequently with fiber than with DE. With DE I would backwash pretty much 2 times per year. Since changing to fiber I have cleaned the filter 3 times now, and we haven't even gotten to the Autumn Deluge yet.
Which brings me to the next "downside" IMO. With DE, I could backwash the media from the filter good enough that only yearly breakdown would be needed. Some here on the board will be familiar with my "experiment" whereby I went 4 years without breakdown. I don't believe this is possible at all with fiber no matter how much backwashing you try. The fiber clumps into very thick mats and sticks there. It comes off easily enough with a hose, or with your hand you can pull off the clumps, but backwash won't budge it.
This last part is what leads me to post this thread. For those of you who have switched like I have, do my comments approximate your experience with fiber? I just wonder about those clumps... I wonder if they were deposited by the minimal backwash I did, or if they were deposited when introducing the media to the clean filter? If it's the latter it seems worrisome to me. Seems like the media may not be coating the grids as evenly as DE did.
Maybe I think too much, as the pool water is very clear and seems to sparkle every bit as much as it did when I used DE. It's just those clumps...
EDIT: I forgot to add a very important point! The reason the clumps worry me is that the fiber does not raise the filter pressure at all when recharging. I verified this yesterday. Clean filter pressure with no media = 10psi. Filter pressure after recharging with fiber = 10psi. Significant? Recharging with DE always raised clean pressure by at least 2psi...
Which brings me to the next "downside" IMO. With DE, I could backwash the media from the filter good enough that only yearly breakdown would be needed. Some here on the board will be familiar with my "experiment" whereby I went 4 years without breakdown. I don't believe this is possible at all with fiber no matter how much backwashing you try. The fiber clumps into very thick mats and sticks there. It comes off easily enough with a hose, or with your hand you can pull off the clumps, but backwash won't budge it.
This last part is what leads me to post this thread. For those of you who have switched like I have, do my comments approximate your experience with fiber? I just wonder about those clumps... I wonder if they were deposited by the minimal backwash I did, or if they were deposited when introducing the media to the clean filter? If it's the latter it seems worrisome to me. Seems like the media may not be coating the grids as evenly as DE did.
Maybe I think too much, as the pool water is very clear and seems to sparkle every bit as much as it did when I used DE. It's just those clumps...
EDIT: I forgot to add a very important point! The reason the clumps worry me is that the fiber does not raise the filter pressure at all when recharging. I verified this yesterday. Clean filter pressure with no media = 10psi. Filter pressure after recharging with fiber = 10psi. Significant? Recharging with DE always raised clean pressure by at least 2psi...