Should I clean my cartridge filter and other questions

[ComputerGuyInNOLA]

Hello everyone,

Our 340 square foot cartridge filter has increased in pressure by only 3psi since it was installed about eight months ago going from 11 to 14 psi. It has a dial that shows 'clean' at 11psi and 'dirty' at 21psi. My question is should we clean the filter anyway? We keep our pool very clean and the trees in our yard are about thirty feet from the pool. What do other cartridge filter owners do about cleaning?

Last week I turned off our waterfall and the pressure shot up to 22psi. Is it OK to run at this pressure? I turned them off to stop the water from cooling down and I noticed a lot more turbulence from the returns which seemed to help the skimmers with surface cleaning. The increase in pressure made my Polaris start moving around the pool as if the booster pump was on. I just wanted to make sure it would not damage anything by doing this.

Thanks,

David

 

[linen]

We would recommend cleaning the filter when the psi goes up 25%, so in your case that would be 3 psi...exactly where your at.

Last week I turned off our waterfall and the pressure shot up to 22psi. Is it OK to run at this pressure?

Is the different from the past? 22 psi is not a problem.

 

[jblizzle]

We actually recommend cleaning when the pressure goes up 20-25% of the clean pressure ... so looks like it is about time.

The higher pressure is because you reduced the number of paths for the water to travel back to the pool. That is normal, although that is a pretty large increase. Are you sure you do not have a valve closed partially?

Posted from my Droid with Tapatalk ... sorry if my response is short

 

[ComputerGuyInNOLA]

Linen,

It is the first time I have turned off the waterfalls since it was installed.

Thanks,

David

 

[ComputerGuyInNOLA]

Jason,

All of the valves are open. We had not closed any valves since the pool was installed. We have four returns and a fifth return for the polaris. At first I thought I did something wrong because of the large increase in pressure and shut the pump down thinking I might damage something. After I turned it back on the pressure was still high and I noticed lots of turbulence and watched it for a few minutes and noticed it was moving a lot of surface water which seemed to help clean the surface a bit better. I let it run this way for about five minutes and then turned the waterfalls back on and the pressure went back down to around 14psi.

Thanks,

David

 

[jblizzle]

Clean the filter and see what the pressure is without the waterfall. The higher pressure is no problem.

Posted from my Droid with Tapatalk ... sorry if my response is short

 

[ComputerGuyInNOLA]

Thank you Jason.