DE Blowing thru

Ok, first of all, thanks for letting me on, I've checked these forums several times for helpful info. I am a pool guy, albeit inexperienced. I started my own cleaning and maintenance service six years ago, shuttered it because I couldn't grow it faster than my family expenses, and recently reopened it as a sideline. I currently have eight customers and have my own diving pool as well. My personal pool is 35'x17'x10' kidney shape with spa, don't remember exactly but approx 28k gal. Jandy equipment, standard trichlor and cal hypo chems.

Anyway, my issue isn't with a customer thankfully but my own pool filter. I did a cleaning on it and it had a cracked manifold along with some grids which had collapsed corners (it had been severely neglected for a long time because I was an over the road trucker, don't judge me! lol). Anyway, I determined that the five old grids which had corners collapsed were still functional for a while anyway (I am waiting for wholesale price approval from the supplier) but I bought and replaced the manifold.

I put everything back together, had a leak in the joint, pulled it apart, relubed, fired it up again and added DE. A pretty large amount came back out through the ports and the spa. I thought I had inspected the grids well enough that I found no tears or holes in the corners before reassembling it. I had also replaced the stand pipe O ring. Do you think this is a simple case of me missing a large tear or hole or is it possible I missed something?

Hi and welcome to the Pool Forum!

I just wanted to say hello and welcome you but also to caution you a bit. We have lots of 'pool guys' who come to our forum. Sometimes they are trying to sell things which is a big no-no. Others come to give chemistry and maintenance advice which is also frowned upon as a newbie. Especially since our methods are pretty different from what most of the pool industry believes.

So, please do us both a favor. Feel free to read and ask questions if you need some help with something but refrain from giving chemistry advice that differs from what we teach here on the Pool Forum. That is one thing that sometimes causes pool guys to lose their membership. Hope you understand.

I'll let someone else help you with your question about your DE filter.

Again, welcome and hope you enjoy participating with us!

(By the way, we require anybody who is in the pool service industry in any manner to create a signature telling that they are. You can make a signature by clicking on the link in my signature below.)

Thanks watermom. I just tried the edit sig link and it said I don't have that privilege yet. I will try to refrain from giving advice, I definitely don't sell anything, but I would like to add my views of what would be possible diagnoses of others' issues if possible. Like saying that there might be low or no CYA in a pool that eats chlorine overnight is reasonable and typical first-thing-to-check-easily response,.isn't it?

Yes, but we prefer that newbies not start out giving advice until they have been around awhile. It gives them time to read and get to know what we are all about. So, for now, just enjoy reading on the forum but hold off on offering advice. Also be sure and read over on our sister website www.poolsolutions.com. Lots to learn there as well.

Hope you understand our position on this. Thanks! :)

I'll have to check on the signature issue and get back to you on it.

(Until you registration is completed, you won't be able to see the rest of the forum while you are logged in. So, copy that link and then paste it into a browser window after you log out.)

Hi Candab;

Without knowing the details of your filter, I'm not going to guess. But I'd recommend that you find the complete parts diagram online, go over it carefully, and then disassemble the filter again, looking for anything broken or misplaced. I've fixed a LOT of things that way, myself.

PS -- let me know if you are unable to post a (moderated) reply to this thread. I've found that some of the permissions aren't working the way I'd expect, but haven't been able to determine just when the problems occurred.

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Originally Posted by candab

... Like saying that there might be low or no CYA in a pool that eats chlorine overnight is reasonable and typical first-thing-to-check-easily response,.isn't it?

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There might be low or no CYA but that has nothing to do with overnight chlorine loss.

Overnight chlorine loss is not related to CYA level but to stuff in the water being oxidized by the chlorine. A pool that loses all it's chlorine during the day might have insufficient CYA.

The filter is a Jandy DEL60. I imagine that one or more of the five older grids are perforated and I just missed it. Just wanted to know if anyone else has dealt with this in their dealings with customers. I would rather not have this happen when I'm doing a cleaning for someone other than myself. It would be nice if the pool company would get off the stick and approve me for wholesale pricing. It would save me a bunch of money.

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Originally Posted by candab

Just wanted to know if anyone else has dealt with this in their dealings with customers.

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Members on this forum are residential pool owners.

I figured it was primarily homeowners but thought there were also pool service folks here too.

Very, very, very few.

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Originally Posted by candab

I figured it was primarily homeowners but thought there were also pool service folks here too.

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When I started PoolSolutions, I got regular 'nasty-grams' from pool dealers and others. When I started PoolForum, I repeatedly had pool service guys register and then start posting, EITHER explanations of how "Ben is doing it all wrong" OR their own 'helpful' posts that were completely contrary to what we teach.

But a lot of water has gone through the filters since then (PS started in 1996 and PF in 1999), and some pool service guys even advertise that they "use the BBB method". So I need to re-work my handling of pool industry members, but to date, I haven't done so.

Lol, it's all good. I would probably be inclined to use the BBB method more if I could tote around all the liquid in an efficient manner, but I cant. As it is, I do make an attempt to keep many extra chemicals out of my customers' pools, concentrating mainly on trichlor, cal hypo, and the basic balancing chems, keeping much of the other stuff away unless as a last resort. I am starting to look harder at methods more inline with BBB. Learning curve n all...

@candab: The so-called 'BBB method' is a reference to my methods, and I've NEVER been 'bleach, only bleach, and nothing else but bleach'. It's unfortunate that Carl_D's easy to remember mnemonic reference to those methods is often taken so literally.

When I was servicing multiple large commercial pools, and was buying tanker loads of 15% commercial bleach at $0.60/gallon, obviously bleach was preferable for keeping costs down. But we kept 250 gallon 'tote tanks' at the customer pools, and pumped bleach into them directly from the tanker.

Key 'BBB' ideas include:

1. Focusing on actual chemicals, not brands (baking soda NOT "Balance Pak 100"; HEDP and NOT "The Pink Stuff")

2. Never using unneeded chemicals (like adding calcium in vinyl or FG pools!)

3. Focusing on getting chemicals from the best available source (thus: grocery store chemicals!), and not from pool stores which pushed over-priced branded version, and un-needed additives.

4. Understanding that the correct FC level is dependent on the CYA level. (The idea and rough ranges was mine; Chem_Geek worked out the full analysis, and the fact that -- generally -- your FC level should be 10% of the CYA level, increasing to 20% with green algae and 30+% with mustard algae)

5. Recognizing that most chemicals come with 'side-effects' that may be good or bad, but must be accounted for. (Dichlor is very helpful if you NEED more stabilizer in a pool; otherwise, not.)

6. Recognizing that dealer testing is designed to sell chemicals, and NOT support pool owners. Recognizing that test strips are too inaccurate to be useful. Recognizing that the K2006 test methods (there ARE other kits, but they cost even more) ARE sufficient for most pool care.

7. Recognizing that many pool products which have actual value occasionally, are mostly not needed, and should not be used. (For example, adding a clarifier to a DE filtered pool is almost always pointless.)

8. Recognizing that many common pool chemicals, including linear quats (foamy algaecides), bromide based chlorine 'boosters', silicone foam suppressors, 'oxygen' shocks, etc., are worthless at best and a real problem at worst.

9. Recognizing that some pool chemicals which are quite effective, such as copper algaecides and ammonia based mustard algae treatments, have such severe side effects that they should generally be avoided.

10. Recognizing that pool filters should universally be operated at their commercial flow rates, and not higher, and that the higher flow rates cause many, many pool problems.

11. Recognizing that simpler is usually better. If you can use JUST cal hypo and stabilizer, that's great. I've done that multiple times on outdoor commercial pools. (It takes some special techniques to avoid continuing rise in TA and CH . . . but it's actually SIMPLER that way.)

12. Recognizing that a pool is a pool of water to be enjoyed, and NOT a set of 'test numbers' to optimized. If it's not broken, we encourage pool owners to stop trying to 'fix it', no matter what the BioGuard ALEX print-out says! Pool store 'style' has changed, with regard to which numbers should be 'chased': TDS used to be stylish, but isn't any more. Phosphate levels are still very 'stylish'.

Here's an older discussion of the topic:
http://www.poolsolutions.com/gd/the-...pool-care.html

To answer the OP's original question...

I struggled with a DE Nautilus filter for 15 years. The grids were sneaky in that a tiny, tiny tear would lead to mass amounts of DE flowing straight into the pool, as if I was pumping skim milk back in. After exhaustive visual inspection, I would usually find the culprit as a small tear at the edge of one grid where the two sides are sewn together in a seam. Since I can't sew, it was off to the store for another $30 new grid, sometimes more than one.

But truth be told, I never took all the grids out and stored them inside for the off-season, so likely I was just paying for my laziness each fall.

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Originally Posted by candab

Lol, it's all good. I would probably be inclined to use the BBB method more if I could tote around all the liquid in an efficient manner, but I cant. As it is, I do make an attempt to keep many extra chemicals out of my customers' pools, concentrating mainly on trichlor, cal hypo, and the basic balancing chems, keeping much of the other stuff away unless as a last resort. I am starting to look harder at methods more inline with BBB. Learning curve n all...

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Be sure to read Ben's link to PoolSolutions.com on the BBB method.

It's really a philosophy that Ben created and I just stuck a label on that seems to have gone almost viral. K.I.S.S. is, of course, a key idea, not a dogmatic demand that you only use bleach, borax, baking soda, Muriatic Acid, and CYA. The one "non-negotiable" part of BBB is you must test, and test properly, with a proper test kit, and the K-2006 is the best there is, because it uses FAS-DPD testing for FC.

Personally, I frequently use Tri-chlor tabs early in the season after I've opened to control high pH and add CYA--but never the "double-acting" or whatever kind. I'll use Di-chlor at times, even Cal-Hypo. Mainly, I use LC, because I can get it, on a unit equivalence basis, cheaper than bleach. I use what is APPROPRIATE.

While I never use pH Up! or other branded products, I will use, and have used Soda Ash instead of Borax...but I buy it as Washing Soda at the grocery.

We also get asked here if the BBB method is compatible with an SWCG. Of course, the answer is: "Yes! Absolutely!" I put in an SWCG system over a year ago, and got excellent advice on it from one of our professional members. I love having it, but I KNOW it doesn't save me money, just saves me time and is convenient. And also TOTALLY compatible with BBB. Why shouldn't it be? It just adds chlorine!