hi, i'm mike the poolman in folsom, californiaand today i'm going show you how to clean one of my favorite filters: the pentair quadd.e. diatomaceous earth filter. the first thing we want to do is make surethat the pump is off and it stays off. we've got a pentair variable speed pump. ill open the little pump door and show youhow to turn it off. to put it in stopped mode, i'm going to pushthe start/ stop button and you can see that it says stopped. the pump will not turn back on. whenever we clean a filter we always wantto open the air bleed to relieve any pressure.
on this filter its just a simple turn. you may be able to hear the air relievingitself. now its ok to open. i want to pull the manifold off the top- justkind of wiggle it and it pulls right off. that's the air relief/ bleed screen. you can hose that off or just rinse it offin the pool. you don't have to drain this filter, it'snice if you can. if there are two things about this filteri wish that pentair would improve, "are you listening pentair?"
i wish they made this filter in black to matchtheir other line of pumps and, the drain is in an awkward spot. i'll show you where. as you can see, the drain plug is in a reallyawkward spot and its difficult to get to. well, it doesn't help when you tighten it! its hard to tell which way to turn when itsupside down. and once i get it i can open it and the waterwill spill out. i feel like i'm doing yoga right now... now that the tank is drained, you just wiggleand pull the four elements out.
these look much like paper elements but they'renot, they're made out of polyester or nylon. they are a much heavy duty material but youhave to make sure that you recharge the filter with new diatomaceous earth, or, if you runstraight dirty water through this you will ruin the these very quickly. do you want to take a look in the bottom ofthe tank? and that's what the tank looks like. so i found a nice place in the yard to cleanthe filters. there are several things i like about thequad d.e. filter: 1) it filters more fine particulate out than a regular paper cartridgefilter
2) and from a service guy's perspective, itsso easy to clean. the pleats are much further apart so it doesn'ttake as long to clean it, you don't get as wet and its an easier clean up. also, i use a de alternative when i rechargethe filter. i'll show that when we recharge it (laterin the video) but it makes less of a mess and its organic so that you don't get diatomaceousearth, traditional diatomaceous earth that tends to leave white marks (residue) in theyard. i'll go about cleaning it now. i think it took less than 2 minutes to cleanthat element and this backyard doesn't even
have very good water pressure on the hose. you could literally clean these out almostspotless in less than 15 minutes. you can't do that with a large paper filter. that's pretty clean! can you see how easy the dirt comes out ofhere because its coated with diatomaceous earth? the diatomaceous earth is the filtration mediawhich captures the dirt and coats the filter and it just comes out with very little waterpressure. its great.
four filters cleaned up pretty quickly- veryeasy to do. now, let's put them back together and we willrecharge the filter. i'm back at the filter ready to put it backtogether. one of the things you always want to do istake off the o-ring. i always go dunk it in the pool just to getany grit or dirt off of it. then you want to make sure that the groovethat it sits in is nice and clean. this is a mistake that many people make whenthey don't take the o-ring off and a little bit of de or dirt builds up around it andwhen they put the clamp on the filter leaks. you can just hose it off or, just pour a littlewater on it and run your finger around it
and it's ready to go. if you look inside the filter you can seewhat it looks like after i've hosed it out and it's all nice and clean. put the bottom manifold back on, it just sitsthere. and now, i can put the elements back in. what i didn't mention, another thing i loveabout this filter is they are so light even when they're full of dirt, they are a lotlighter, a lot lighter than dirty paper cartridge elements. this is especially helpful for people whodon't have a lot of strength- maybe the elderly
if you still have to clean your own filter. so, you can pick these up pretty easily andjust set it in there. by the way, there's no right-side-up. either way it goes in. i put my little screen on that's been cleaned. those just tap in place....and my o-ring. make sure there is nothing on this o-ring. and, i don't believe in lubing the o-ring. i know a lot of retail stores will tell youthey like to lube the o-ring.
to me, it's great for about a month and it'snice and slippery and then the lube turns to glue and then it attracts dirt and it'sa big mess. when you need a new o-ring every couple years,just buy a new one, i am not a lube guy. the tank goes on any way you want. i always try to do it so the when the gaugeis closed that it's facing where you can see it well. just set it on there. the clamp goes on either way. i'm a rightie so i like to put it on for mebeing right-handed.
when i took it off it was left-handed andi don't (personally) like it that way. it doesn't matter which position the bandgoes in and the bolt. you can put it anywhere you want. i like to put it out of the way so i don'tcatch my clothes on it or run into the bolt. so this is how we assemble it: little washer-and i'm detailing this because so many people put this together incorrectly, we find itall the time. spring, then i've got my nut, my washer andit slips inside and i tighten it. now, most things on a pool equipment set youjust want to hand-tighten, except the filter because its under pressure we really wantto tighten it down pretty well.
when it (the pump) turns on it will stretchit a little bit and it will loosen the band so i always like to tap it a few times tohelp seat it. you can use a rubber mallet, a rock, yoursocket, what have you, i'm using my socket today so i'm using it. after you tap it you'll feel its looseningup a bit and you can crank it down a little bit more. that's pretty good. you don't have to go crazy tight as some peopledo (scott!) but good-n-tight. and then, we have to put this... drain plugback on...pentair, are you listening?
black filter... drain plug in a differentspot. pleeeaase?? maybe on the side? you don't want to go too tight here. just snug because it is plastic. i always tend to go a little looser than tighterthat way i don't over-tighten it and crack it. worst case scenario it leaks a little bitand i can always give it another half-turn with my channel-locks.
let's turn it (the pump) on and might as welldo it right now and we'll bleed the air out. i'll turn the pump on. the variable speed pump will start up. we'll wait for the water to fill up the tank. if you can picture this, there's air in thetank and water is filling the tank up and as it fills it up it's blowing the air outof the air relief. once water comes out i'll shut it (the airrelief valve) off. let's go charge this thing up! its time to charge the filter.
you want to do this withing 5 minutes of bleedingthe air out of the filter. you don't want to wait too long because dirtis accumulating on those filters. i like to use the de alternative called aquaperl. there are several different brands. this is the one i prefer. as i said, you can wash it down the gutter-i don't recommend that but it's not illegal to do so (in my county)like it is diatomaceousearth and it cleans up well in the yard and goes away quickly. so this is a quad 80 filter, not the quad60 that my cameraman told me!
it's a quad 80 so it requires 8 one poundscoops of diatomaceous earth. some people still use coffee cans and tryto do the calculations... why bother?! get yourself an orange pre-measured de scoop. it might be $5, $10? it will last a long, long time and there'sno calculations. one of these is 1 pound. you don't have to add all eight scoops atonce. you can divide it up depending on how bigyour bucket is. and you don't have to be perfect with thescoops.
you don't have to pack it in. and this is very, very important: you wantto mix the diatomaceous earth into a slurry- trust me, i've tried it on my own pool. you would think that by just pouring it intothe skimmer that it would mix itself up on the (way to) the filter, it doesn't. it will clumpy and actually find dry spotson your filter six months later when you clean what we're going to now is we're going tomake a slurry just by stirring it with our hand or with a stick. you want to do so until all the lumps areout.
its very easy to tell. once you do that, you slowly pour it intothe skimmer. the pump will suck it through and then itwill coat the filter. four, five, six, seven, eight... some people recommend wearing a mask whenyou're doing this, it certainly wouldn't hurt . i don't unless it's a windy day. today the wind is pretty calm so it's notblowing around but you definitely don't want to stick you're face in there and breatheit or snort it in. another thing i love about this filter: withall the residue de that may spill, you can
always just wash it off into the pool or offof the deck. any extra d.e. that goes in the pool is eventuallygoing to be filtered through the system and its going to be trapped by the filter and helpcoat the filter. now i have a nice clean work area. that's it! that's how you clean the pentair quad diatomaceousearth filter. hopefully by the time you watch this, thisfilter will be available in black and the drain plug will be in a better position! this is a superior filter.
i hope enjoy it on your pool. thanks for watching, i'm mike the poolman.
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