Our approx 30000 gallon pool is around 6 years old. The original set of DE filter grids lasted about 4 years, when I realized I was getting a lot of filter media in the pool. I quickly found several of the grids had holes in them, which made sense. I cleaned the DE out of the pool, bought a new set of grids and the pool ran great that year. Now a little less than 2 years later, I seem to be getting filter media in the pool again, although not nearly as much. I've taken the filter apart and cleaned the grids thoroughly, but don't see any holes in the grids. I've read that if the manifold is not seating properly, which can be hard to tell, you can get DE leaks as well.

In general, I'm tired of the backwashing process and dealing with keeping DE available for when I need to. Has anyone successfully swapped their DE filter to a cartridge filter? I know there are some minor plumbing differences, but that doesn't scare me. I had a cartridge filter on a previous smaller pool, and I know they're not fun to clean, but I think the cartridges have come a long way since then. I appreciate any advice anyone can offer if you've done this or thought about it.

TIA

It's just plumbing at the end of the day.

You'll have to swap the entire assembly, you can't just take out the DE grids and put in cartridge filter elements.

I exclusively install cartridge filters unless someone specifically asks for DE or sand. I find them to be more homeowner maintenance friendly.

We've done a couple of these conversions and they are pretty straight forward pvc work. If you want some help, send me your contact info and I can see if we can help save you some money on the filter housing.

DE is still around, but I haven't seen anything built in the last 5-10 years be anything other than cartridge. Tells you where the industry is headed.

I JUST converted from a sand to cartridge and couldn't be happier. Did the plumbing myself.

fire09 said:

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We've done a couple of these conversions and they are pretty straight forward pvc work. If you want some help, send me your contact info and I can see if we can help save you some money on the filter housing.

DE is still around, but I haven't seen anything built in the last 5-10 years be anything other than cartridge. Tells you where the industry is headed.

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My pool was built in 2017 and I feel like if it were built a year or two later, cartridge would've been the default. In fact, I think the same pool builder built my neighbor's pool a couple years after mine and they have cartridges.

Thanks for the offer on the filter housing. I currently run a Hayward 60sf DE filter. Would that translate to a 325 or 425 sq ft cartridge system?

I'd appreciate at least a sanity check on the prices. Looks like on Amazon, I can order a 325 sq ft system for $1299 and a 425 sq ft for $1569.

Sea Speed said:

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I JUST converted from a sand to cartridge and couldn't be happier. Did the plumbing myself.

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Yeah, the plumbing doesn't scare me. I am a little disappointed that I just swapped to a multiport valve, which I know most people hate. With the problems I had been having with getting DE in the pool, I wanted the ability to vacuum to waste that the multiport gives you. Now if I swap to the cartridge system, that valve is pretty much useless.

Well you can probably keep it instead of buying a 3 way valve. I have a 3 way so I can vacuum to waste if need be.

True, I wouldn't get rid of it. Just probably didn't really need to swap it if I was planning to swap to cartridges. Just didn't think of that as an option at the time.

I would have kept my MPV but it kept having issues like yours. Sand was getting in to my pool and I replaced the spider gasket and it didn't fix anything. When I took out the sand filter there were also some broken parts inside as well. I'm very happy with my cartridge filter.