5 Minutes of Pressure with My Hayward DE Filter

by Felicia A. Williams

I know I should have given up a few days ago, but I’m still trying to make my “deal” work. If you’ve read more than one post, you know I’m starting this pool season with a very dirty pool. There are leaves at the bottom, bugs and all kinds of yucky stuff.

Scooping the dead leaves from the bottom of the pool creates a fine mess. If I leave the leaves alone, they sit there looking harmless. Once I start scooping them out, not only do they smell, but they get all stirred up and dump fine brown particles all around the pool.

Challenge for the Hayward DE Filter

Since the filter is old and I’m not real familiar with it, I’ve been giving it the benefit of the doubt. I do see that my pool water is getting cleaner, but I also find the filter’s pressure doesn’t last for very long.

I do expect to have to clean the filter quite often because of the amount of dirt in the pool, but I didn't expect that it would only run for 5 or 10 minutes before the pressure dropped. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was so I opened the filter to take a look inside.

Lo and behold, all of the diatomaceous earth was sitting clumped up at the bottom of the filter housing with precious little attached to the filter fingers. Way at the tippy top of the fingers there was about ¼ to ½ inch of DE. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize there is a problem.

The Quickest Path of Least Resistance

Because I was anxious to get things back up and running, I did a quick power wash of the filter fingers, washed out the housing (couldn’t use the backwash feature because of the clogged run-off spout) and put everything back together again. Maybe if I added the DE in a watery solution instead of pouring the dry DE into the skimmer it might stick to the filter.

I sat there and made the slurry DE solution and gingerly poured it into the skimmer making sure I wasn’t going too fast. I didn’t see the DE come back into the pool so I thought I was cooking with gas.

Once I was done, I set the filter to run to clean up my latest brew of leave particles.

No Pressure from My Hayward DE Filter Again

This time it took a few hours before I noticed the lack of pressure. The return water went from a rushing rapid to an insipid drip. The pool water was barely circulating. Here I go again! This time I opened up the filter to find the slurry gloop of diatomaceous earth sitting at the bottom of the housing.

Ugh! I guess it’s time to bring out the heavy guns. This time I washed off the fingers and decided to soak it overnight in muriatic acid. It’s the only thing I had not done as yet. Maybe the dirty water had oils and minerals that coated the fingers preventing the DE from sticking (I’m reaching for anything that might make sense).

Right now the filter is sitting in a Home Depot 5-gallon tub of diluted muriatic acid. Only time will tell if the muriatic worked. Stay tuned...

Eureka! Hayward Pressure Problem solved!

About the Author: Felicia Williams is a wife, mother and grandmother who likes to write about a host of topics.

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Last Modified: 24 March 2020