Pentair Safety Series: Cleaning and Maintaining Your Pool Filters

Understanding your pool equipment pad and how everything works together is essential. Think of a pool as a person; the automation system is a bit like its brain, sending signals to the different body parts to ensure they're working accordingly. The chemicals you add to the pool water are like white blood cells, attacking germs and keeping the environment clean. And the filter? That would be the lungs of the pool. Filters take in dirty water, reduce contaminants, and push out cleaner water.

As pool filters are designed to capture debris, they must be cleaned out periodically. While they are like the lungs of the pool, they're unfortunately not self-cleaning. Before you consider cleaning your pool pump, consult a pool professional. Better yet, call your trusted neighborhood pool pro to handle it for you! Either way, be sure to watch our video on how to safely clean a Clean & Clear Plus Filter to understand what the process looks like.

Unfortunately, there's no easy answer on how frequently you should clean your pool filter. You'll have to consider a few different factors, including the length of your pool season, the amount of debris like leaves and oak catkins in your backyard, and your specific type of pool and filter.

Fortunately, the Clean & Clear Plus Filter has a gauge that makes it easy to predict when it's time for a cleaning. Once the pressure gauge shows that the system is running at 10 PSI higher than its starting pressure, you'll know it's time to clean your pool filter.

If you have a Clean & Clear Plus Filter, we have a video on how to safely clean it. You can also find information on the Clean & Clear Plus Filter and other products in the installation and user guides.

With any product, be sure to glance at the warning labels before using it. This label highlights anything you should be aware of, from steps you can take to reduce risk to possible operational errors to avoid. Your safety is essential.

Your approach to cleaning may vary depending on the type of filter at your pool, so it is important to read and follow manual instructions carefully. One primary safety consideration for all filter cleanings is the risk of trapped air. If air becomes trapped and is not released, it can compress and cause pressure to build. That pressure may cause the lid to separate from the base, which is a serious safety hazard and can be especially injurious if you are standing close.

This is why you should find a pool professional to handle this service. Trained experts know how to prevent this from happening, and they can answer any questions you have about your pool, too. (If you're curious to learn more, however, this and other precautions are outlined in our safety video.)

Before you even think about disassembling your pool filter, put your automation system into service mode to ensure the pump doesn't unexpectedly start. If your pool doesn't have an automation system, you can skip this step.

Next, head over to the breakers in your control panel to turn off power to all pool features. This step is essential, as you want to prevent your pool equipment from turning on until all maintenance is satisfactory.

You can expect the process of disassembling, cleaning, reassembling, and restarting a pool filter to take at least 30 minutes.

Your pool pro will need a ratchet wrench, a 7/8" socket, and a dead-blow hammer for a standard Clean & Clear Plus Filter cleaning. You can help them out by having a garden hose with a spray attachment handy, as they will need to spray out the cartridges on a clean, hard surface.

Your pool pro may also occasionally soak the cartridges in a cleaning solution to get rid of oils like suntan lotion. You may see them using commercial filter cleaner or a cup of trisodium phosphate to complete the job.

After service is completed and your filter is restarted, you'll know there's a problem if a solid stream of water does not appear within 30 seconds or if water leaks from the two halves of the filter. If these problems do appear, shut off the pump immediately.

For more helpful tricks and tips, you can visit the Pentair Pool Education Center. You can also follow Pentair on Facebook for more useful information, fun facts, and company news.