Hello! First the short background to set the scene and be upfront on how clueless I have been.
I purchased a house almost a year ago with a pool. I am new to pools, and this pool was built with the house approximately 20 years ago.
I'm sure some of the equipment was replaced over time, but I don't know the age of any of it.
With all of this information, novice-me decided I should be able to figure it all out and didn't need the help of a pool service. A poor decision.
Early on, I took the filter apart to see what it looked like and pulled out what looked like a cartridge. From that moment I assumed I had a cartridge filter and have run it like one for the last 12 months.
I've cleaned it several times while treating algae issues, and never put 2 and 2 together about the lever in front of the filter that said backwash, rinse, waste etc. By now you are probably getting the picture.
So I've been running a DE filter without any DE for about a year. I see people on here freaking out about running it for an hour without DE, so I am going to assume all hope is lost for the filter I have.
I'm looking for advice on what to do next.
My local pool shop says to replace the whole thing with a cartridge filter solution (from Pentair). Their logic is that by the time I replace the filter and possible service the Sta Rite multiport(?) I am past halfway on the cost of a new cartridge solution. I also noticed the pressure gauge reads 10 even when it is open, so maybe that is bad too?
But I have found this DE filter pretty easy to clean and maintain - pull out the filter cartridge (25023-0160S) and I can get it really clean in 20 or 30 mins. So maybe I just try and buy a new filter cartridge if the current one is unsavable and start adding DE?
Lots of great info on this forum, and I look forward to opinions on what some of you pro's would do at this point.
I purchased a house almost a year ago with a pool. I am new to pools, and this pool was built with the house approximately 20 years ago.
I'm sure some of the equipment was replaced over time, but I don't know the age of any of it.
With all of this information, novice-me decided I should be able to figure it all out and didn't need the help of a pool service. A poor decision.
Early on, I took the filter apart to see what it looked like and pulled out what looked like a cartridge. From that moment I assumed I had a cartridge filter and have run it like one for the last 12 months.
I've cleaned it several times while treating algae issues, and never put 2 and 2 together about the lever in front of the filter that said backwash, rinse, waste etc. By now you are probably getting the picture.
So I've been running a DE filter without any DE for about a year. I see people on here freaking out about running it for an hour without DE, so I am going to assume all hope is lost for the filter I have.
I'm looking for advice on what to do next.
My local pool shop says to replace the whole thing with a cartridge filter solution (from Pentair). Their logic is that by the time I replace the filter and possible service the Sta Rite multiport(?) I am past halfway on the cost of a new cartridge solution. I also noticed the pressure gauge reads 10 even when it is open, so maybe that is bad too?
But I have found this DE filter pretty easy to clean and maintain - pull out the filter cartridge (25023-0160S) and I can get it really clean in 20 or 30 mins. So maybe I just try and buy a new filter cartridge if the current one is unsavable and start adding DE?
Lots of great info on this forum, and I look forward to opinions on what some of you pro's would do at this point.
