New member, OLD pool, filters are rotting out, need advice on new filters

jeepwm69

In The Industry
May 22, 2025
6
AR
Little background, I grew up in the 80's taking care of a 60K concrete pool my great uncle built in the late 50's. Originally had no skimmer and two water outlets, only filter intake was the drain. Filter was an old boiler tank full of sand.

In the mid 80's we installed a single skimmer, moved the intake on the bottom, and had two jets installed. I took care of that pool until the mid 90's when I went off to school.

Worked for golf courses while off at college, so had some pool care involved there as well.

Now I'm taking care of the country club pool in my tiny rural Arkansas town. Was built in the 60's, L shaped pool with the _ of the L being the deep end. Supposedly 160K gallons Concrete, of course.

I've been the caretaker for two years now after the long-time caretaker retired. Pump is Pentair C series that has seen better days, but fuctions. Filters are two large steel tanks fed by 4" PVC, with the same size outputs going to a single 4" PVC that goes under the concrete deck to the jets. Two screens at the bottom of the deep end for intake. No skimmers, has a spit rail that drains into a holding tank/ cistern in the pump room.

In short, it's old, worn out, and very out of date, but as our town has shrunk, so has the membership at the country club and thus money is very, very tight. Last year total cost for running this pool Memorial day to Labor day was about $5500, including $900 to rebuild the pump motor.

Fired the pump up a couple of days ago after draining, cleaning, and refilling the pool. Both filters have been patched by a welder about 15 years ago, and both filters blew holes in those patches upon pressurization. I had a welder out there this morning who re-patched the filters, but said the metal is super thin so he had to stay low on the heat, and he didn't think his patches will be a long term fix.

So, looking for filters. From the little research I've done we need to turn the water over 3 times a day, so that's rounded to a half million gallons a day.

Pentair has a Triton 2 TR140 that rolls 203,040 gallons per 24 hours, so I'd be short running two of those side by side like we are now. Can anyone offer any advice on what we should be looking for?

I'm hoping that the patching done today will get us through the season, and we can swap filters out in the off-season, but I need to be looking at options and figure out what direction we should take now.

I'm in farm country, so everyone is taking about using ag tanks and filling with sand to cobble together homemade filters. While no doubt that could be made to work, that will likely cause me problems down the road that will not be easily be fixed, so I'd rather get serviceable actual pool filters if possible.

I'll post pics tomorrow. Yall will all slap yourselves and wonder how and why we're trying to limp along this ancient monster of a pool LOL.

In short, poor farming community, club with declining membership, and it's what we have. I'm someone who enjoys old everything, and like working on stuff, so it's right up my alley.
 
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From the little research I've done we need to turn the water over 3 times a day
I would do more research, and understand the EXACT requirements that you need to meet. Including any sort of permitting, inspection and approvals you need. Then design the system around the requirements. This will avoid costly mistakes.
 
I would do more research, and understand the EXACT requirements that you need to meet. Including any sort of permitting, inspection and approvals you need.
You must have missed that he is in Arkansas. :whistle:
 
You must have missed that he is in Arkansas. :whistle:
 
Neptune Benson are the filters you want to look into for that size pool. They are not inexpensive, but Daisy chaining a bunch of residential filters together is not the answer.
 
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Neptune Benson are the filters you want to look into for that size pool. They are not inexpensive, but Daisy chaining a bunch of residential filters together is not the answer.

 
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You must have missed that he is in Arkansas. :whistle:
While funny, you're right. Where we are in the Arkansas Delta, we get an inspector at the first of the season who basically checks the chemicals to ensure balance, looks for anything dangerous, and signs off on it. I rarely see the inspector again in that year. Last year the inspector did show up again at the end of the season. As long as I keep the chemicals balanced they don't seem to mind much else.

Pics of current filter setup. Welder patched the biggest leaks yesterday and his welds sealed those up, but upon pressurization last night had a few pin holes in surrounding areas start leaking. I have a feeling it's going to be an ongoing battle until we replace. When metal rots out and a hole develops, that means that the surrounding steel is all going to be thin and on the brink of failure as well. That's why we don't weld up air tanks that develop pin holes.

I slapped some waterweld over the pinholes this morning. Won't fire the pump back up until this afternoon to give it time to cure. I'm not real optimistic about it holding, but I did patch a hole with the stuff last year and made it all the way through the season without it leaking again.
 

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I would put some CAUTION tape and signs around the filter area so if a tank blows no one gets injured.

Those tanks look ugly and in a residential setting we would advise they are too dangerous to use.

Even that car parked out on the grass looks like a target.
 
I'm sorry but you need to decommission and replace those now. Life/safety issues, which is what you have, must be dealt with now. I understand the financial constraints you’re under, but new filters are a heck of a lot cheaper than defending a wrongful death suit.
 
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They're a ways away from the pool, and that's my vehicle parked there to take pics.

These don't have over about 20-25PSI on them, so I'm not too worried about them being a bomb like I would be an air tank at 100PSI

But I think we can all agree I need new filters. I send an information request to Neptune Benson for information on their legacy filters. Any other recommendations?
 
If my math is correct, this filter handles 268GPM, 385,920 per day. We run this pump 24/7, so could we possibly get by with running one filter this size?

 
Which pentair pump? 5 horse, 7.5 horse, 10 horse, 15 horse? I’d assume 5 but you know what they say…what’s your flow rate, suction reading and pressure reading?
 
Which pentair pump? 5 horse, 7.5 horse, 10 horse, 15 horse? I’d assume 5 but you know what they say…what’s your flow rate, suction reading and pressure reading?
Well that's a good question. Pentair C series. The pump itself has a tag on it. We had to have the motor rebuilt last year, data tag was unreadable, and when I asked the motor repair shop what HP in order to try to source a spare motor they said they couldn't tell what HP it was without the data tag.

It's a 3 phase motor, but no idea on the HP. I had planned on ordering pressure gauges as the originals are junk. There's a flared line on the inlet pipe going into filters, another on the outlet, each going to a guage, but neither gauge works. I figured if we're replacing the filters I'd hold off on buying gauges.

The local electrician replaced the motor several years ago, said he used a Dayco from Grainger, but couldn't remember what he put on it. He THOUGHT it was a 7.5.

And yes, I understand that I'm asking for suggestions with a lot of very pertinent information omitted.

I inherited this mess, and it actually worked really well last summer, had no problems keeping the water clear and chemicals in balance, but it's a very old system and has had a lot of people cobble it together over the years. One guy said the filters were patched 4-5 years ago by a local welder, then an older man who knows pools said "no, no, those were done by another welder 10-15 years ago" That welder did a lot of work for my family when we had a granary and he was the best around. I guess his patches on these tanks held up well if they lasted that long, but these are beyond repair now so we need to find something else.

Living in a farming community I have lots of guys suggesting we use plastic farm liquid containers and build our own filters. I think that's going to be a waste of time, money, and effort, and make the job of whomever is caring for this pool much more difficult in the long term.
 
The Pentair C comes in all HP sizes I listed. Their curves vary however. To size a filter properly I need to know which pump. I can calculate your flow but not without suction or pressure readings or an actual flow gauge that provides an estimate of flow.

I ask because I suspect your pump will be too much pump for either the Triton or the Hayward filters you referenced. But without any data to perform calculations it's impossible to steer you in the correct direction.

I have lots of guys suggesting we use plastic farm liquid containers and build our own filters.
Please no. Just no. It's wrong on so many levels. You know this. Just no...