This will be our first full season with our pool. Because of our concern over how things are done we had the local pool store close and open our pool. The equipment to us is intimidating. But my wife and I are studying and observing and are starting to get a handle on the components.
We opened the pool early this season to handle the ph. The water was in good shape. After a time the water looked ok but not 'crisp' like we had it in our short season last year. We were seeing small amounts of DE on the benches and in the spa and the cleaner filters. We put skimmer socks on as well and they were starting to gather DE as well. Something was not right, but what.?. My wife decided we needed to open the filter and see if something was not seated properly or if the filters had tears. We have a Pentair Quad cartridge filter.
We watched a couple youtube videos and read JoyfulNoise's post several times. Guts of QuadDE Filter. We even had it open in the browser while we took our filter apart. What a great and useful article!
Things went smoothly but the moment we pulled off the filter cover we saw something amiss. Here is the picture:
There is no spring at the top. If you look at the above post's pictures the spring is quite clearly there.
The pool store was open so I immediately went over to ask for a spring. I brought the picture with me. They said, yes, looks like it is missing alright. They could order the part and have it by Thursday. I explained that we were getting DE in the pool and the next thing they asked was if the air bleeder assembly had a mesh cover on it. I had no clue what that part was but they said if you look directly down you would be able to see. My wife took a picture and sent it to me. Sure enough it was missing. The guy then asked us to check where we dump out our filter baskets to see if the parts are there. When they close pools they leave the filter components in the pump filters. ... Uhh... I think I would have noticed plastic and metal components falling out of the basket when we emptied. (I've been asked or told some pretty odd or obvious things from these people in the past and well,.. it is frustrating)
They did have the filter cap for the bleeder in stock and when the guy told me it cost $29 I politely explained that I did not think I was responsible for the cost because they closed and opened our pool. He agreed and gave me the part.
The first picture is what we found when we opened the filter.
This is with the filter, how it should be.
I will be picking up the spring today or tomorrow. We've decided that the process was not too difficult to open and clean the filter and that we will do another filter clean at some point in the season and install the spring then.
After a week the water is much clearer. We have socks over our skimmers as well and they are not collecting a fraction of what we were before. We are not declaring 100% victory yet, we want wait a another week or so and let all the existing DE clear out of the pool. But it is obvious when you look in the pool, there is just an extra level of clarity that was not there before.
We opened the pool early this season to handle the ph. The water was in good shape. After a time the water looked ok but not 'crisp' like we had it in our short season last year. We were seeing small amounts of DE on the benches and in the spa and the cleaner filters. We put skimmer socks on as well and they were starting to gather DE as well. Something was not right, but what.?. My wife decided we needed to open the filter and see if something was not seated properly or if the filters had tears. We have a Pentair Quad cartridge filter.
We watched a couple youtube videos and read JoyfulNoise's post several times. Guts of QuadDE Filter. We even had it open in the browser while we took our filter apart. What a great and useful article!
Things went smoothly but the moment we pulled off the filter cover we saw something amiss. Here is the picture:
There is no spring at the top. If you look at the above post's pictures the spring is quite clearly there.
The pool store was open so I immediately went over to ask for a spring. I brought the picture with me. They said, yes, looks like it is missing alright. They could order the part and have it by Thursday. I explained that we were getting DE in the pool and the next thing they asked was if the air bleeder assembly had a mesh cover on it. I had no clue what that part was but they said if you look directly down you would be able to see. My wife took a picture and sent it to me. Sure enough it was missing. The guy then asked us to check where we dump out our filter baskets to see if the parts are there. When they close pools they leave the filter components in the pump filters. ... Uhh... I think I would have noticed plastic and metal components falling out of the basket when we emptied. (I've been asked or told some pretty odd or obvious things from these people in the past and well,.. it is frustrating)
They did have the filter cap for the bleeder in stock and when the guy told me it cost $29 I politely explained that I did not think I was responsible for the cost because they closed and opened our pool. He agreed and gave me the part.
The first picture is what we found when we opened the filter.
This is with the filter, how it should be.
I will be picking up the spring today or tomorrow. We've decided that the process was not too difficult to open and clean the filter and that we will do another filter clean at some point in the season and install the spring then.
After a week the water is much clearer. We have socks over our skimmers as well and they are not collecting a fraction of what we were before. We are not declaring 100% victory yet, we want wait a another week or so and let all the existing DE clear out of the pool. But it is obvious when you look in the pool, there is just an extra level of clarity that was not there before.
