DE Filter Issue

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D

donnyruss

0
May 1, 2014
18
CT
I am having an issue with my DE Filter. I cannot keep water going through the filter when it is set to normal filter. When I first start my pump, everything appears to be fine; pump primes, water flow is good, and the pressure is about 18. Within 10 minutes, the pressure has gone up to 30 and the pump ends up losing prime and will not pump any water. I have taken the cleaning grid out and hose them down and they appear to be in good condition. I have even done an acid bath on the grids. If I run the system on backwash it works fine; although I have not run it for 10 minutes on backwash. Also, if I just run the system on recirculate, bypassing the filter, it also runs fine.

Please help, I am at a loss.
 
It sounds like you have a chemistry issue.....not a filter issue.

Your filter is getting clogged by visible and invisible debris in your water and is doing exactly what you want....getting the debris out of your water.

It becomes clogged very quickly, causing pressure to go up and requirinng backwash to clear it out.

You need to SLAM the pool. Can you post test results and a pic?
 
Since it is cloudy you have organics in the water, probably algae. The filter is doing its job and working properly. The problem with DE filters is that they work very well at catching fine debris, so they will clog quickly when there is a heavy debris load in the water. You will have to clean and recharge it frequently until the pool is clear.

Another point working against you is that a 24 square foot filter is too small for a 24,000 gallon pool. That is also contributing to how often the filter will need cleaning. If you can afford it, I would consider getting a much larger filter, at least 60 square feet.

I think if you SLAM Process the pool with the filter set to recirculate and vacuum to waste daily until the water is clear you can get ahead of your nascent algae bloom. Then you can switch back to filtering as normal.
 

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The word slam in my earlier post is a link describing the slam process. Most refer to it as shocking the pool, the problem is that shock is a product that often adds things you don't need to the pool, such as excess CYA or Calcium, depending on the type of granular chlorine used.

The slam process stands for shock level and maintain. In order to clear the pool you need to use liquid chlorine to raise it to shock level, and by frequent additions of chlorine keep it at shock level as much as possible until the pool is clear. There are more details in the link.
 
Just to eliminate it being anything other than the filters themselves clogging from organic material or maybe just time to replace grids..take all the grids out of tank and put back together without grids, start up like normal (no d.e lol) and see what happens. If your pressure doesnt increase after 10 mins or longer like before, it's the grids either just keep cleaning or consider replacing.. If pressure does go up to 25-30psi you may have another issue.
 
MP123 said:
Just to eliminate it being anything other than the filters themselves clogging from organic material or maybe just time to replace grids..take all the grids out of tank and put back together without grids, start up like normal (no d.e lol) and see what happens. If your pressure doesnt increase after 10 mins or longer like before, it's the grids either just keep cleaning or consider replacing.. If pressure does go up to 25-30psi you may have another issue.
Click to expand...

what would the other issue be? If the pressure does go up 15?
 
Have SLAMed the pool for a little over a week and can start to see the bottom of the deep end. Vacuumed the pool to waste today. Tried to run the filter on filter instead of recirculate and still have the same problem with the pressure shooting up in less than 10 minutes. If I do a quick backwash (less than a minute) the pressure will go back down to normal but the be back up again in less than 10 minutes. Will try taking the grids out and running it that way. How long should the grids last normally?
 
I'd take out the grids, hose them down really good & reinstall them. You can't run without the grids. Add DE as soon as you turn the pump on, you might even want to put a couple scoops in the bottom of the filter before reassembling.
 
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