When it comes to Hayward swimming pool filters there are three basic choices; sand, cartridge type and diatomaceous earth. They are all effective and each has its features, benefits and drawbacks. To make the correct choice of filter for your pool, you first should understand how they work and what are their pros and cons.
Perhaps the most common filter is sand, they are easy to comprehend and they are inexpensive. Even though they are the least effective form of filtration, they are still very popular. The operation is simple, the filter is loaded with sand, the water that is drawn from the pool enters the filter and is pressed through the sand, and the particles are removed during the pass through the sand.
Once the water has passed through the filter it goes straight back into the pool. When the filters get dirty they can be backwashed or, if filthy, the sand can be replaced. The primary problem with Hayward swimming pool filters that use sand as the medium is that some particles go through the sand and end up back in the pool.
Cartridge type filters clean the pool water as it passes through a filtering material, the material captures the particulates and then releases clean water into the pool; these types of filters are popular with many pool owners. Cartridge type pool filters are available in two forms, one is relatively inexpensive but has a short life; the other is considerably more expensive but will last a lot longer. The more expensive cartridges can last years with prescribed maintenance.
Cartridge type Hayward swimming pool filters need to be cleaned as they become full of debris from the pool. Over the course of the swimming year, you can expect to have to clean the filters two or three times.
The most effective swimming pool filters are those that use diatomaceous earth. This material is the fossilized skeletons of diatoms and is mined. The DE filters contain a grid system, the DE is poured into the filter housing where it coats the grids, the diatoms act like microscopic sieves, filtering out the smallest of particulate, as small as 5 microns. As the DE filters are quite expensive, many people add a scoop or two of diatomaceous earth to their sand filters, it does not do the same excellent job but it does improve the filtering over plain sand.
