Trying to get going...

[pestilotsi]

So here's the problem. I had a major cover breech this winter that happened when I was real sick. Needless to say the pool was a disaster by the time the cover came off. I skimmed and vacuumed and changed the de in the filter 3 times now. I have a Haward perflex with the fingers. I hit it with a butt load of shock to start with, killing most of the algea but the filter kept loading up on me keeping me from running the pump for very long. I finally decided to siphon vacuum to waste the remainder of the yech in the bottom and pretty much got most of it. Recharged the filter again and it ran a lot longer this time but now the pressure keeps riding up again. It goes down when I bump it and stays there for about 10 min or so then goes back up. I want to do a decent slam on it to get going but I need that filter to be running. None of my values are way off my cya was about 35, fc around 6, ph 7.3 and ta 55. Should I reload the filter again?. I never had these kind of issues with it before. What could be causing this pressure rise besides a dirty filter? I ran that filter the whole season last year and never had to change it even once. And I figured once I got the gunk out of the pool I'd get a break with it. Money's a lot tighter this year and I'm not getting any younger (this pool is a lot of work for someone pushing 70..lol) all the chemicals have skyrocketed in price, including the de

 

[HermanTX]

Are you just backwashing the DE filter or breaking it down for a thorough cleaning?
If you backwash, then only add about 2/3 of the total DE requirement because you never completely remove all DE when you do a backwash.
Prior to a SLAM I would completely break down and clean the grids. Good job if you were able to remove most of the sludge
Also ensure your pressure gauge is functioning so you are actually monitoring a change in pressure.

 

[pestilotsi]

New pressure guage. And that's 3 complete drain and recharge on the filter..cant really backwash on these small de units with the fingers. That included a high pressure rinse off with each drain

 

[pestilotsi]

Had my niece pick up some cleaner for the filter just incase that's what it might need..also maybe a dumb guesting but after reading up on pressure problems it said to check the the pressure regulator...is that the thingy that I open when I start the pump?

 

[VinnyinNJ]

I had a DE filter with grids and had a winter cover blowout as well with it. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the filter is doing what you want it to do. Since my filter had grids I believe it had more surface area than the fingers but yeah bumping, monitoring, draining the DE and recharging is all that can be done. I can tell you that it does get better as it gets rid of the crud in the water.

 

[MITBeta]

DE filters are VERY GOOD at what they do. I have seen friends go through many backwash / recoat cycles while SLAMming.

After 3-4 recoats, take it apart and clean it all out. algae likes to make DE stick to the fingers.

Take the filter cleaner back to the store. It won't help.