How to Clean a Swimming Pool Filter

A clean pool filter is crucial for maintaining bather comfort and extending the life of pool equipment. This eHow will show you how to clean a crushed sand filter, a diatomaceous earth filter and an enhanced cartridge filter.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Filter Sand
• Diatomaceous Earth
• Filter Cartridge
• Pool Supplies

1. Clean a crushed sand filter by back flushing water through the system on a regular basis (about once a month). Your system's pump station will come with instructions on how to reverse the water flow to clean the debris from the filter.

2. Replace the sand in a crushed sand filter completely every three to five years, depending on the amount of use the pool gets during each season and the kinds of large airborne contaminants your filter encounters.

3. Replace the diatomaceous earth in a diatomaceous earth filter two or three times a year to make certain the grid-structured system filter is working at maximum efficiency.

4. Rinse a modern enhanced cartridge filter in the sink when the pressure gauge on your pump begins to show a rise in pressure of 10 or more lbs., and then place it back into the unit.

5. Replace the cartridge of these modern enhanced filters every two to three years. You'll know it's time to replace the filter when the pressure doesn't go back down to the normal range; it has become clogged with hard deposits that cannot be rinsed out.

Tips & Warnings

• Diatomaceous earth, or DE, filters use tiny fossil skeletons as a filtering agent. The DE is placed into a grid system that the water runs through.
• Crushed sand filter systems are being outlawed in a growing number of areas because of the need to back flush, which causes contaminated water to mix with groundwater supplies.
• The new enhanced cartridge filters far outperform the old cartridge type systems and the other methods described here without being damaging to the environment; they are the future in pool filtering.

[passionpool]

on 3/2/2009 For those in the Phoenix Arizone - Scottsdale AZ area you can contact me through our website www.scottsdalepoolrepairservice.com and we can help you or walk you through the cleaning process.

[sgh49ers]

on 8/11/2008 I agree with Ponyboy, I was never shown how to clean my filter and have no directions so I came to the internet. I know about the same as I did before reading the article which is NOTHING! I need to see pictures and a better explanation!! Let someone else write how to do it please!

[ponyboy]

on 11/2/2007 This article is not good. You don't tell someone how to do something by saying "read the instructions that came with it". Those people are here because they don't have the instructions.
Also, what is "crushed sand"? There's no such thing.
Also, you don't clean a filter in your sink. To clean a cartridge filter you hose it off with a high pressure "sweeper" nozzle on your garden hose...outside. You may need to soak it also, with a special solution available at the pool store.
Also, in the tips and warnings how about including that the filter will explode if you try to disassemble with the pump running; or if it has pressure inside. The pressure must be bled before opening the filter.
I say, remove this article and let someone write the correct procedure.