How Often Should I Change The Sand In My Pool Filter
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Silica sand filters are cost effective, they work well, and they practise not take a huge corporeality of ongoing maintenance day to day. There might be better options for puddle filters that waste less water, are more period efficient and are capable of removing finer physical droppings from the water than sand filters but that does nothing to diminish the popularity of sand filters. Yous actually could make a very good example for upgrading to a more than efficient filtration arrangement that has much less resistance to menstruation than a giant tank of sand that y'all are pushing water through.
A well designed and efficient plumbing system would exist ane that is easy for the filtration pump to draw and push water through. If you had a system that was incredibly hard to push water through this would result in a less efficient plumbing system. This is actually kind of what a sand filter is, relatively speaking, and this is why an upgrade to something with a much better flow design should always be on the tabular array if you currently own a sand filter. Before you consider spending any money on a filter service y'all should weigh the comparison of cost for servicing the filter you have at present versus replacing with a new model. In that location could be enough advantage for you to upgrade already, and the money spent on service to the old filter might be ameliorate off going towards the purchase price of a newer, more reliable and more efficient filter system.
The unmarried biggest problem with pool sand filters is the multiport valve they use to select filtration settings such as backwash, rinse, wintertime, close, recirculate and filter. Convenient for the pool operator, but definitely a huge flow brake when compared to pretty much every other valve, fitting and piece of equipment within your filtration system. The maximum designed menstruum rate, a very important number relating to the volume of water your filter can handle before the potential exists for impairment to internal components, is specifically low in sand filters versus any other filter type. Take a look at this comparing betwixt a sand filter and a cartridge filter, where both of these filters are of suitable size for a 20x40' pond puddle.
Hayward S270T - 350 lbs sand filter
Maximum blueprint menses rate = 74 GPM
Hayward C4030 - 425sf cartridge filter
Maximum design catamenia rate = 150 GPM
Both of these filters are very big, merely not the largest available for either selection. Both of these filters will have no trouble keeping an extra deep 40,000 gallon 20x40' puddle clean and clear, but as you can see those menstruation rates are majorly dissimilar. This is especially important since average one horsepower pool pumps tin can easily move fourscore+ GPM and new variable speed puddle pumps in the 2 to 3 horsepower range like the EcoStar, TriStar 950 and IntelliFlo are easily capable of 150+ GPM so long as the plumbing system can handle this much menstruation. If yous have a sand filter, and you do not take a menses meter telling you how many GPM is moving through your system, then you are almost certainly overdriving your sand filter. This is very of import to know.
How does a sand pool filter work? - A sand filter is a pressure vessel, essentially a tank filled with sand. Water is applied under pressure level from the pump and forced through graded sand which removes all but the smallest physical debris before the water is collected clean on the other side of the sand and continues on through your plumbing organisation and back to your pool. Backwashing, a term synonymous with pool sand filters, is exactly every bit information technology sounds in that the water is sent backwards through the filter from the direction it usually travels. This forces all the physical debris that is sitting in the first few layers of sand to wash out through the waste product pipage or drain on your pool filter. When the pump applies water pressure the entire filter tank swells in size, a quite unsettling feeling when you are continuing next to one while doing this as it really shows you how much force per unit area and lower exists in these systems. The filter weighs hundreds of pounds and feels as solid as tin be, despite beingness made from resin. But when pressure applies from the pump the entire tank swells similar an inflating balloon. Definitely never take the potential for danger lightly with a pool filter.
A quick recap here, a sand filter is a pressure vessel and swells and contracts every time you lot turn on and off the pump, and information technology is rated for a certain maximum menstruation rating that many pool owners accidentally exceed for the entire operating life of the filter. So at present we can starting time to talk nigh the main indicate of this article y'all are reading, which is when should you replace your filter sand? As an experienced pool technician I tin easily tell you that most of the people who change their filter sand, or think that they need to modify their filter sand, actually do not need to do this. Worse than this they specifically should avoid changing the sand in their filter.
If you desire to follow the volume nearly how often you should change your filter sand the answer will be either every 3 to v years, or every 5 to seven years, depending on who you lot ask. But is this actually good advice? I don't think so. These established values for sand filter changes were developed and agreed to in a different age of pool equipment. Pumps were smaller and filters were congenital to last. Every puddle pump these days is absolutely gigantic, and pool filters, much like everything else these days is built to work, but non to last. Parts are made using the cheapest, thinnest possible materials, and then these cheaply made filters are attached to pumps that provide mode besides much flow. The terminate consequence is a filter that works, only if yous attempt to change the sand every 3 to 5 years you are nigh certainly going to encounter a problem.
How long does filter sand terminal? - Pool filter sand does wear over time much like play sand versus a sharp sand or brick sand. Once the edges of the sand have worn down the filter volition have less filtering power compared to what it was when information technology was new. Additionally a puddle filter is the garbage can for every final icky affair that finds its way into your puddle. Later on a few years time this becomes a bacterial breeding grounds. Sand filter changes every v to 7 years is how I was trained many years ago. All the same it was not exactly linear, information technology was told to me equally every 5 to 7 years, or when at that place is a problem. This is important, considering almost pool owners recall sand changing is one of the first things yous should look to when the pool is cloudy or green. Filter sand is probably the last thing you should expect at, percentage wise. Chances are extremely loftier that your problem with water quality is either a chemical imbalance of some kind, or you but are not running the filter plenty. Information technology should be running 24/seven any time you lot are having h2o quality bug.
As a service technician I have regularly removed sand filters from service that were notwithstanding operating on original sand after 25 years. There is no rule that says you must modify your sand. Merely a recommendation that if y'all have a problem with your water yous might need to change it. If yous don't accept a problem in the first place then I am of the opinion that you should leave your filter alone. If your pool is green and you recollect peradventure it is the filter sand, it is probably a chemistry outcome in well over 90% of cases.
Why you should Not alter your filter sand - Pool filters used to exist fabricated to final a one-half century or and then, with some models even being stainless steel and stiff enough to withstand decades of employ, or even a direct strike with a vehicle...almost. Pool filters manufactured today are mass produced with resin and ever-cheaper materials, gaskets and moving parts. The finish result is a product that works, but does not last. Add to this the fact that the filter is constantly exposed to chemicals, changing pressures, reversing pressures and concrete debris and you lot might kickoff to see why opening yours to alter the sand might exist a bad idea. While I used to perform filter sand changes regularly at the beginning of my career this is something I would rarely recommend these days. The chances of damaging something within the filter during the sand removal process is very high. Even when y'all're careful, many times the internal lateral assembly parts are hanging on by a thread and even the lightest disturbance causes them to fail immediately in your hand, or fail in a way that yous do not find until the adjacent day when all the sand from your filter is now on the floor of your pool.
When a filter sand replacement service call goes well information technology is a quick, admitting gross job. When a filter sand change does non go well I spend the fourth dimension cleaning the erstwhile sand out, bringing in hundreds of pounds of new sand, put it in the filter, make clean upward and start up the system with a lengthy backwash to prevent the pool from going cloudy from the new sand. Only and then the side by side day I go a call from you in a panic because the flooring of your pool is covered with hundreds of pounds of sand. The standpipe or laterals broke. You might exist able to guild replacement parts. If they make them nevertheless, and if they will not take longer than 48 hours to get (special guild parts is six weeks) y'all tin purchase new sand, replace the broken part and begin cleaning hundreds of pounds of sand out of the pool. Remember i part already broke inside the filter, so unless you lot replaced everything than another failure seems likely. This is why you should strongly consider non replacing the sand in your filter.
A new cartridge filter is a lot more money than a sand filter, but they are a much improve filter in terms of what they can remove from the water, equally well equally being vastly better from a hydraulic efficiency standpoint. On newspaper the increase in arrangement efficiency will probably pay for the difference in price between a sand filter and a cartridge filter over the course of its service life. If y'all factor in that you might pay a few hundred to have your filter sand inverse by a professional person, and at best y'all accept an old and mayhap failing filter, for sure that few hundred would exist better allocated towards purchasing a new, more efficient cartridge filter.
Channeling sand - If the sand in your filter solidifies from age or adverse chemical situations then this would be i of the but reasons I would explore irresolute the sand in your filter, as this could happen to a fairly young filter that still has some life left in it. Calcium hardness and a scaling state according to the LSI can cause your h2o to calcify and solidify your sand in your filter, such that the water no longer filters squeamish and evenly, merely has worked channels into the sand creating pathways of low resistance to flow through. The finish outcome is that h2o is going through the filter simply no water is actually existence filtered.
Bacterial buildup - The stuff within a sand filter gets pretty gross later on a while. A cartridge filter gets disgusting after a half flavour of performance so y'all can only imagine what a sand filter is like since information technology never gets cleaned out in the same thorough way that a cartridge filter does regularly. Instead of changing the sand to deal with the bacterial buildup in your sand filter you can also wait towards a chemical treatment and cleaning to regenerate your sand media. This is a maintenance item that you would 100% try before yous can fifty-fifty start to consider replacing the sand in your filter. If you accept not been using a sand filter degreaser
Sand Filter Cleaner
I would say that regular use of a filter cleaner product is the but long term maintenance that sand filters need other than backwashing of form. Do non expect quickly to changing the sand in your filter as the respond to water quality bug. Filter your water 24/7 and ensure you are within tolerance for your h2o chemistry every bit that is almost e'er the source of water quality and clarity issues. Sand filters wear out but the effect would be a slow and steady refuse over years and years. Decades. Bacterial buildup and channeling is a business concern but those are both best treated with proper water balancing as well equally a filter cleaning handling, not sand changes. Finally, with the chance that you overdrive your filter being loftier, or at least operate it at the very maximum operating range as a guarantee, and with how cheaply things are made these days, changing the sand in your filter is equally probable to cause a problem equally it is to fix 1. Peradventure even more and then.
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How Often Should I Change The Sand In My Pool Filter,
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