Hayward EC40AC Perflex Extended-Cycle D.E. Pool Filter

My Pool: 24' Round KD Royal above ground pool. Hayward 1hp Flomax pump with Hayward EC40 D.E. FilterI decided to wait until the end of the season to write this review. I purchased my filter in late spring to replace my PITA cartridge filter. I had a cartridge filter for about 10 years and the money I spent on filters would have paid for this filter several times over. This is by far the best above ground pool filter you can buy. I bought one box of d.e. powder for $25 and charged the filter twice over the entire summer. I didn't even use half of the d.e. I bumped the filter about once every 5 days whether it needed it or not. I just like bumping the filter when I clean the leaf basket on the pump. Since everything is already off, why not. I closed my pool last weekend and I removed the pump and filter to store for the winter. I took the filter apart per the manufacturers instructions by loosening the two bolts on the cover retaining bracket. It took a whole 5 minutes to remove the cover. I lifted the top off of the filter and exposed the d.e. filter elements. The elements were dirty but not like I expected. (from some of the youtube videos) I carried the filter top over to a 5 gallon bucket I scavenged up for the occasion and set the filter inside the bucket. It fits perfectly! I bought a bottle of filter cleaner and transferred the contents into a spray bottle. Following the filter cleaner instructions, I sprayed each element with the cleaner and let the filter set in the bucket for 10 minutes or so. The stuff has muriatic acid or some other caustic chemical because it had a pretty strong odor. Gloves, eye protection, and long pants and sleeve highly recommended. Once the 10 minutes had passed, I hosed off the elements to remove the cleaner and the nasty stuff. It took all of 20 minutes from start to finish to clean this filter.Now for the performance. WOW!! My pool water was crystal clear ALL summer long. Startup was a breeze. The pool was swim ready in 3 days which is how long it took to get the debris out of the pool,chemicals balanced and clear. The pool was cloudy for 1 day but the d.e. filter had it sparkling on the 3rd day. My neighbor who had a pool service fired her guy because he couldn't get her pool as clear.I am extremely happy with this filter and will buy another if this one ever fails.PROS: Keeps water crystal clear, reduces pool maintenance like vacuuming, easy to load, easy to clean. Very inexpensive.CONS: NONE. Just wish I had bought one sooner.FINAL THOUGHTS: If you need a filter for your above ground pool and you want crystal clear water that is easy to maintain, you don't want to spend alot of money, and you don't want to clean weekly like a cartridge filter, then this is your filter. You won't find it any cheaper than right here on amazon. In fact if you need anything related to pool equipment, Amazon is the place to shop.

Bought this last summer when we lost domestic water and resorted to irrigation water from the local water district. Coming directly from a nearby lake I was adding algae every pool topping. 26 years of sand filtration on our 28,000 gallon above ground pool finally failed, couldn't keep up with the algae bloom. Some internet research led me to the DE filter above. The reviews were positive, I took the plunge and bought the next size up. Installation is somewhat different as there is no discharge, but using 1&12" PVC unions, hose barbs, and good flex hose I am able to divert the pump to discharge if needed. The morning after the first overnight filtration we woke up to a totally different pool, the water was clean and crystal clear. I haven't looked back, this filter is the bomb. I noticed right away there is less friction to slow the pump, the return jet is much stronger than the sand filter, plus there is way less cleaning and fooling with the filter like my old sand filter.My only complaint is it's messy when cleaned, I still haven't figured out how to contain the mess yet, but the longevity of the media means that cleaning should only have to be done a couple times in a season.If you are plagued with algae or a dirty pool, I would highly recommend this unit with no reservations. I never write reviews, but read them frequently in making a purchase decision, in this case I would like to pass on the favor of positive comments as our experience with this pool filter is 100% positive.

I bought this to replace a jacuzzi cartridge filter after trying to get my cloudy pool water to clear for over a month. My old system (probably over 10 yrs old) would spit debris back in the pool whenever I vacuumed and the pool was impossible to clean. I tried all sorts of chemicals including water clarifiers and lots of chlorine and after several weeks I still could not see the bottom of my pool at the shallow end. My pool is 10,000 gallons and is 3 to 5 feet deep.After running this for 2 days straight, which included 'backwashing' and elimination of the first D.E. I had put in the skimmer, and replacing it it with new D.E. On the second day, and vacuuming the pool 3 times, the water is now crystal clear. Since I did not have any experience in using this type of filter in the past, I had to learn by experience since I could find any Information to clean a really dirty pool. If your pool is really full of dead algae and the water is very cloudy, I think it should be noted in the manual that you should replace the DE after 24 hours of use. After first installing it I had to 'bump' the system every 30 mins because the pressure built up so high due to the dirty water. Gradually I moved to bumping intervals of 3 to 4 hours until I just drained the system to clean out the dirty D.E. Be careful if your pool is really dirty, as you will have to monitor the pressure very carefully for the first few days. I replaced the DE on the second day, and the pressure is fine now.The system works great, and much better than I expected, I just wish that there was a better warning as to how to operate it when installing it with really dirty pool water. I imagine that almost everyone buying a new filter system is doing so because their old filter is not doing a good job and their water is not cleaned easily. I installed it myself and my system looks the same as the one shown in the operating manual with the intake and outflow on different sides of the system. It does not look like the one on the photo.Also, was a bit worried about not having the base (that is shown in the manual) to install it on, but since I installed it on the existing concrete pad and used rigid PVC pipe to install everything (with union connections of course so I could complete remove the system without cutting any pipes), there was no movement of the system while in operation.It took me about 3 hours to install it, including removal of my old system, as I am no expert installer.Please forgive any spelling/grammar errors as I am typing this on my iPad