Did you know sand in a swimming pool filter should be changed?
Experts recommend changing the sand every five years. Filters can go 20 years or more without changing the sand and still do the job, they are not as efficient as they should be. Filter sand has been ground to a size of .45 to .55 mm in diameter and is very rough when new. This roughness is what makes the sand efficient at filtering out the particles of dirt in your water. As this roughness is smoothed out – as stones in a stream wear smooth over time – your filter’s efficiency goes down. This means that your system has to run more frequently to accomplish the same task. This, therefore, increases your chemical costs. After five years, your sand has worn enough to allow dirt to penetrate so deep that normal backwashing doesn´t clean it completely. The result is shorter filter cycles which require more frequent backwashing.
