I've owned 3 pools and this is the first DE filter and its been a huge pain.
Bought a new liner, new filter grids, new pump, and new seals/gaskets all last year, still can't get the thing to run right.
The first year the filter didn't seem to "work" so I called out a pool place who told me the grids were bad, so I ordered new grids. with the new grids, the pump seemed to get backed up real easily so they told me to buy a new pump, so I bought a new pump. because I was moving in to the house, this first year was moving very slowly, I just bypassed the filter and ran recirc to get me through the summer, and I covered the pool up.
The liner was torn, so the next year I replaced the liner. I run the filter and it goes from 12-20 psi in about 10-15 minutes, and when it hits 20 psi it backs up and stops moving water. Frustrated, I spent an entire year trying to figure out what was wrong. I ended up getting frustrated and I closed the pool off early.
Now into year 3- I searched on here and thought the filter was impregnated, so I pulled the cells out and cleaned them with chemical cleaner. I tore apart the entire filter/pump/etc assembly and checked everything out and cleaned everything. I bought new seals/gaskets for the pump and the valve because the old one seemed bad. I put the filter grids back in, bought a 1 lb DE scoop so I could be sure I'm adding the right amount, added the DE, and it seemed to be running great, right at about 10 psi. I check it 2 hours later- still running great at 15 psi. Never got it to run this well this long, so I decide I should put in stabilizer (0 stabilizer- chlorine burnout was taking approx 12 hours to go from shock - 0). Check it 12 hours later and now its backed up at 20 psi, and no water is flowing through the filter. I thought it may be because of the stabilizer- I know it can raise filter pressure, so I say "oh well I'll add it later", backwash, clean it out, and now I'm back to the same game as before.
Everywhere I read says 20 psi is normal, 30 psi is high... I find I start out at 10psi though so I thought 20 psi was high in my system. so why is it getting backed up at 20 psi?
Whats next? the only thing I can think of now is to fill the pool in with dirt, but I hate to do that because I spent so much money on the liner, pump filter, but the pool does not work so its pretty useless right now.
36 sf DE filter, 1 hp motor, 2 inlets (skimmer and floor), 3 outlets, 27k gallons in ground with liner.