Cleaning cartridge pool filters

it SUCKS.

IT frickING BLOWS

I had to do mine 6x in the last month because the idiot pool company put algaecide in my pool which killed the algae & it settled at the bottom of the pool and has been getting sucked into the filters ever since.

no amount of vacuuming to waste or using the robot has helped.

pool looks like glass now and i'm still at 'clean filter' PSI on the fat cartridge tub so i guess i get to go for round 7 tomorrow!

frick THIS shite.

when i had a sand filter at my old pool i WELCOMED cleaning day; just rotate the multiport and wait for 1 minute and you're done.

my water bill was nearly $300 last month due to me sitting outside for 90 minutes hitting these with a pressure washer watching the endless gunk and chunks flow out.



i don't care if its $2,000 i'm converting to sand at the end of the season.

this cartridge bullshite has me LEVEL-10 triggered.

i'm sick of it.


eta its sooooooooooooo much fun to drag the pressure washer out every week and take the ENTIRE frickING SYSTEM APART and hope i don't pinch/cut the giant o-rings or that it doesn't leak when i'm done and my favorite..i stripped the screw on the SANSABELT thing so i spent 2 hours working the washer with channel-locks until it would thread on again.

i love being an old man and doing gymnastics to get the channel locks on the little drain plug between the filter and the back of my house. BONUS - try doing this without touching any of the fiberglass parts of the filter housing so you don't get invisible fiberglass splinters in your hands, your arms and where your legs accidently brushed up against it. LOVE THAT!!! :heart::heart::heart:

oh and there is shite literally all over me from head to toe from the pressure washer when i'm done.

eta2 but you should see how clean the concerete deck is in the area where i clean the filters oh that concrete is SPARKLY from getting hit every week with the pressure washer.

My pool guy does it twice a year for me. Included in his monthly price. I’d rather not mess with that shite.

I use a cheap electric pressure washer with a 40 degree tip.

Sucked bad enough I switched to a sand filter

I don't own one, but there are several tools out there like this.

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shite just keeps coming out.

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having done this so many times in the last month i've got a pattern going that seems to help:

- hit w/ pressure washer 40 degree head while fliters are standing up; if you're going at a steep enough angle it wont knock them over

- when you're all the way around, FLIP UPSIDE DOWN and repeat

- when you're done w/ that, flip right-side up again and lean/hold cartridge at a 45 degree angle and with your other hand holding the wand, hit the underside and watch the chunks fly. repeat all the way around or until your arm is sore and you have to take a break.

just don't hit it again afteward so you don't have to see there's still shite coming out.

eta the dead algae 'mud' is covering all our rose bushes since the pool is on a built-up deck and they're on the ground.

wife was pissed but i'm not hauling these things to the other side of the yard.

You can throw a little DE in the strainer basket and that will improve sand effectiveness. You just have to replace it each time you backwash. I did that at my old pool and it worked well.

As for the crap they put in my pool, that was my fault for using a pool store for the first time to open and close it.

Never again. Always did it myself but thought I'd splurge this one time and boy do I regret it.

Eta whatever you said sounds right. It's the consistency of clay and it's never-ending even when the pool looks perfect.

Idiots.

LINK

This thing works. I can clean my 4 tall filters in 20 minutes or less.

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you want mine?

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I appreciate the offer and sales pitch I just use a regular hose sprayer on blast and never had any issues. I have a few crape myrtles a bit away from the pool, but otherwise I get very little in the pool. I also haven't used any flocculants in the two years I've had it.

I clean them a few times a year and they probably take 45 minutes. I also have a 12" catch basin with a metal grid drain in the yard near the filters so I just clean them on top of that. I will also pre-soak them with simple green while I'm going. Just a light spray when I take them out and get set up.