the pool guy pet show theol guy pet show the guy P show yeah hey welcome to the pool guy podcast show in this episode I'm going to talk to you about filter cleaning I'm going to give you some tips on making this really something I wouldn't say enjoyable but not really a chore or pain and especially if you are a pool Pro and you do 60 or 70 filter cleanings two or three times a year this is really going to help you speed up your day out there as well Pool Service Pro open a Leslie's wholesale account today and receive wholesale pricing on products you use every day lesli's Pool Supply offers convenient locations that are open 7 days a week another great benefit of opening a Leslie's wholesale account is lesli's referral program get referred to a customer looking for weekly Pool Service save time and money and grow your pool service route and become a Leslie's Pro I think one thing that's going to help you and I'm going to start off by talking to the pro out there is to be organized what I do when I have my filter cleaning time is I'll print out a list and this is something that I think is essential having a printed list on the clipboard with all the filters that I need to clean and I have this in a Word document so I know like which pool has which type of filter and then I'll print this out and I'll keep this on my clipboard and I'll check off the filters that I've cleaned and this really helps kind of give you a visual aid of like how many filters are left before your cleaning cycle is done and I also like to organize it in the de and cartridge filter categories and I prefer cleaning all the de filters first and then the cartridge filters second I mean I may make some exceptions and mix a little bit but I find that I'm in the better mindset when I'm doing all of one type of filter and in my area it's a good mix of both thean cartridge filters it's like a 50/50 or 4060 mix and it's something that I found to be mentally helpful when I separate those and focus on one type filter to another now you have to have the right tools to do this as well and so I think one of the things that is lacking is using or utilizing tools that speed up your filter cleaning out there so taking the clamp off of the full-size filters is a chore in itself especially if you're doing 60 or 70 of these and I found that the multi-or filter tools or filter sockets are a great way to speed your day up out there you can learn more about the multi torque filter sockets at multi- tor.com that's M TI hyphen tk.com or just type multi torque and Google will get you there and basically these are made for your power drill I like a cordless drill myself I think it's a more conv venient and you want to get a COR this drill with a lot of torque I like the rigid brand from Home Depot they're really reliable and they have really good torque and the reason why you need torque and it kind of goes with the name of the product is that you put this filter socket on the end of your drill and then you can remove just about every filter clamp in a matter of seconds from the 4,000 Series 2000 series little black kind of nut handle plastic thing to the I describe that pretty poorly to the uh you know the pent a clean and clear plus spring Barrel nuts Hayward filters Jandy filters anything with the spring barrel nut they'll have a multi- torque for that they sell a set so you can buy a complete set of the multi- torque that will cover just about every filter including the system 3 filters which are notoriously timeconsuming with those eight or 10 clamps on the side of them and it's one of the things that this these tools really speed up your cleaning out there and if you haven't bought the multi- torque socket sets I recommend you buy them and get them for your pool service or even for your personal pool you can just buy the one that you need for your for your pool and of course they're really well made and durable now they're made out of anodized aluminum most of them are at least and then the most popular one would be the mt100 and this is a dual socket for the 9/16th and 7/8 and this is good for again most of the filters out there from pent to Hayward to Jandy although the newer Hayward you're going to need the Mt 100h cuz the newer Hayward filters Chang their nut to be a little bit wider but the older Haywood filters this will work perfectly fine on and again this saves you so much time out there removing that clamp which can be a pain to remove move in a speedy manner another tool that you may be interested in investing in is the Cyclone filter cleaner and this is a pretty simple device there's a stand and then there's two bearings that you put the cartridge filter into and you use the particular adapter that comes with it for the uh nozzle I should say and then you would clean the filters and you can clean them without bending over which is nice and if you do four or five fullsize cartridge filters today you know that bending over the cartridges can be a real strain on your back the Cyclone filter cleaner you can learn more about that at Cyclone filter cleaner.com and you can order it there and it's great for a homeowner that does their filter cleaning also because then you can clean your cartridge filter and save on your back but it's made primarily for the pool Pro who needs a good easy way to clean these cartridge filters in a fast rapid fashion without straining themselves so definitely check that out I think it's 329 or 300 300 around $300 for the Cyclone filter cleaning kit and it comes with again the bearings and also the stand and the nozzle to clean the cartridge filters easily and quickly speaking of nozzles I think if you're cleaning D filters and cartridge filters without this particular tool the Cyclone filter cleaner the best nozzle that I found for cleaning filters and you can order this on Amazon used to be able to pick it up at Walmart for like three bucks they had a whole incap or not a whole incap but a whole container full of them and I would just grab like three or four of them because they do we out fairly quickly if you're using them you know uh to clean 80 or 90 filters but I like the orbit sunmate hose end 58361 n sweeper nozzle again that's the orbit sunmate hos end 58361 and sweeper nozzle and this is just a little little nozzle that goes on the end of your hose but it's such a great high pressure nozzle that I find that it cleans the filter grids very easily it cleans cartridge filters very rapidly and this even it even works really well with low water pressure so if you have an account where the water pressure is really low the orbit sunmate 583 61n will work perfectly with low pressure it's my go-to nozzle I carry three or four of them in my truck because they break on occasion and then you just have to replace them or you'll lose them I've left them at customer stops unfortunately I left them on their hose and this is something that is a definite must I also think you should get a good collapsible hose because sometimes the customer's hoses are just a mess they have holes in them the the uh end of them are crushed I don't know how that happens but it seems like every single customer hose that I go to use the end where you where you thread in the no that was crushed somehow I don't know they run it over with their car or something but those are useless or their hoses don't have the O-ring in them and water shooting out everywhere when you turn it on from the spigot so I use my I usually bring my own hose back to almost all the stops and this depends on how far the hose spigot is from your equipment sometimes you can get away with using a 50ft one a lot of times you would want to get a 75 or 100t collapsible hose and I guess I'm not using the right term I think the actual term besides I I call them collapsible because they really fold down to nothing but if you look on Amazon they're actually called expandable hoses and they're they're either anywhere from 50 to $180 for there's one here for $80 100 foot it's J and B expand a hose 100t expand expandable garden hose if you just go to Amazon and type in garden hose expandable you'll see all the different ones there and just a note about the expandable hoses they are not really friendly with rose bushes or anything sharp so I've actually broken a couple of these by pulling them through a planter over a rose bush and over something sharp so they're not super durable so just be aware of that and be careful with them but I like him because you can carry them back easily and they collapse down pretty well and so it's not like you're bringing back you know full-size garden hose those are a pain to bring back and forth they're pretty light too when they're empty and they come usually come with a cheap nozzle which you're going to discard and use the orbits nozzle but of course having your own hose is important because sometimes they show up at the stop and the hose is not functioning or usually the hose for the customer is not functioning or not usable for your filter cleaning now where you clean the filters is also an important factor you know if you do def filter and you're cleaning them on cement and you're you're cleaning them by a drain on a cement surface be aware that for the next 2 or 3 weeks there's going to be residual dious Earth dust all over the cement even if you hose it off really well the day you're there it's going to dry and you're going to have D everywhere and one of the biggest complaints I get is from customers that go go out there the next day and I've had customers call me or text me angrily saying there's so much dust over here by the pool still or by the equipment pad can you come back and clean it it's really frustrating because D filters are notoriously messy and when they dry the dust is there for sometimes months it's kind of just one of the natures of diet Tom's Earth so I try my best to clean diet T Earth filters on the lawn if they have a grassy area sometimes I'll clean them into a planter but sometimes you you'll get the gray de all over the plant or to and they don't like that so A lot of times the best place to clean them is the lawn if there's a grass area if not you know maybe find a side area where you can kind of clean them all and it's not going to be very obvious but that's the nature of D filters they're a pain to find sometimes a good location to clean and the dious Earth gets everywhere it's pretty harmless to the lawn by the way there's not much residual chlorine on the C on the grids and I've never really had a problem with like the grass dying after cleaning him you just don't want to leave big clumps of De in the lawn because then the landscaper will be yelling at you as well you know they don't like cutting the grass and big clumps of De flying everywhere so make sure you clean up well and hose down everything onto the lawn as far as cartridge filters go I really prefer cleaning these and it's really easy there sometimes there's some residual dirt I'll grant you that but you can clean them just about anywhere and it's just basically dirt coming off of them so you clean them in the Planters clean them on cement and just make sure you clean all the dirt up and maybe there's some dirt left over but it's not nearly as bad as the the D dust getting everywhere someone walks on top of D dust that's tracks on their shoes and before you know it it's all over the backyard patio area so cartridge filters are my preferred filter type and they're easy to clean and I think you can clean them just about anywhere without a problem they take a little bit longer to clean I'll grant you that than well maybe it depends on how fast you are at cleaning them but I would say that cartridge filters are a little bit more timec consuming in my opinion the filters I can clean the filters pretty rapidly now there are certain tricks you can do with d filters you can take off the top manifold and take each grid out one by one I prefer doing it one by one that way you can rebuild it and don't have to worry about it you can actually pull out the entire grid assembly if you're strong enough if the filter's small enough this is my preferred method of pulling out the whole grid assembly and then I'll clean off the D filter and the grass still all assembled just keep turning it twisting it getting all the you know hose off the areas there and a third method is if there's a back wash with a P trap and all the all the water the de water is going somewhere not in the in the area around the filter you can actually clean the D filter off in the tank itself you can do this in two methods you can clean it off with the top manifold intact you just have to develop skill the Orbit's nozzle by the way is great for this it can be a little messy though as you know de and water shoot back up at you so be prepared for that but you can clean a d filter in inside the tank in some cases with the right nozzle if you're experienced at it and you can do this correctly one thing you have to do afterwards is give the filter you put the lid back on and give the filter a good back washing just to make sure you got all the residual out of there or you can remove the top manifold and then clean the D- grids inside the filter this is an easier way to do it because then you can see in between the grids and as long as the backwash is functioning and the water is draining somewhere into a P trap into the sewer you can do this successfully if it's draining somewhere near the equipment it gets really messy so I wouldn't recommend it unless it's draining somewhere outside of the the customer's home and this is a really effective way to clean a d filter rapidly just take off the top manifold hose everything off while it's in there and you can call it a day pretty easily you may want to give it a quick back washing also to make sure there's no residual and the filters that I like the best are the pent 4000 series I'm not a big fan of the 2000 series cuz that lid sometimes can be problematic but the 4,000 series is my favorite D filter because it's actually reversed you have the bottom manifold on top you have the top manifold on bottom and so basically you take the lid off the 4,000 series by the way that lid is pretty heavy and then you can clean the cartridges by simply pulling them out of the bottom manifold after you take the top manifold off of course which is the bottom manifold in the other filters kind of weird how I'm describing it it but you kind of get the idea when you do one and then you can hose the grids off very easily so my favorite easy to rebuild and very easy to clean I think also one thing that you're going to find Handy out there when you're cleaning these filters is a silicone lube for the O-ring and this is a silicone spray that I use and you can get use any RV grade silicone spray by the way so go to AutoZone ask him Hey where's your RV silicone spray they'll point you to the aisle and you can use any RV grade silicone spray the silicone spray is an easy way to Loop up the O-ring if you're using the magic loop I mean that's fine I guess but to me magic Lube is extremely messy applying it and really messy when you're cleaning a filter later with the magic Lube on the O-ring it just turns black and it gets all over the place to me the silicone spray is the best it actually I I was doing this one time and an engineer came out and he's like hey I noticed you're using silicone spray that's really great because you know I work for whatever Boeing or somewhere and I know that the um silicone spray really will massage into the O-ring and make it last longer and it's really great for the O-rings I'm like all right that sounds good you know carry on and hopefully the you you're building good planes and uh you know lubing those O-rings in those airplanes but basically the silicone spray does make the oing last longer and I found that it's much easier to get the lid on when you use silicone spray every o-ring can you can spray with it and I found that the O-rings last maybe three or four times longer out there in the field with the silicone spray versus the magic Lube magic Lube is still good but I prefer the silicone spray so I use the boss silicone sprays and a purple can you can also just use again any RV silicone spray work fine and I like spraying the O-ring I like spraying the drain plug o-ring and basically anything that you can spray I like spraying the spring barrel nut and by the way that's a little tip there every time you take that spring barrel nut off and on you're kind of stripping the bolt a little bit each time and so if you spray that with silicone spray or just dip the magic loop actually the magic loop container will fit right into most of those those threaded uh bolts at the end of the clamp and you can just stick it into the stick that into the magic lube and pull it out and it'll lube it up for you cleanly but I use a silicone spray myself and if you Loop those up the spring Barrel nuts will last a lot longer or the bolts themselves and the clamps will last a lot longer than if you don't the worst thing that you can have happen is that you start to strip that clamp with the bolt on there because then you're spending like 30 minutes getting that spring barrel nut off that filter and then you got to replace that clamp so Lube that up also and use the silicone spray I highly recommend it for filter cleaning it's a clean and effective way to lube up those O-rings so I'll go back to the beginning when I mentioned splitting up the filter cleanings with d e and cartridge filters another reason why you want to do this is because I like to carry spare diam Earth grids on my truck and there's kind of a rule of thumb if you're going to replace three grids that's fine you know you should have at least four or five of each filter size grid 36 48 60 if you have some 72s on there those would be the old PX 2 Series filters and have those grids in your truck I keep them in my back seat cuz I've had some flat out of the back of my truck they're pretty light so I don't necessarily carry them in the back of my truck although you can if you have a box and you can put them in that box sometimes when you order a a grid set of eight keep that box and you can put grids in there put in the back of your truck again just to make sure they don't fly out you don't want them exposed to the sun either because the sun can really deteriorate the grids rapidly when they're exposed to the sunlight but you should have plenty of spare grids plenty of spare O-rings for the filters and the reason why I like the split my filter cleaning up is cuz I'm carrying dious Earth on my truck I'm carrying the grids I'm carrying the O-rings for those filters it can be a pain to have all that carried on your truck for a month long period And so I'll do the D filters first and then after I'm done with the D filters I'll get rid of all the extra accessories that I carry for D filters and then I'll just clean the cartridge filters that at that point so to me that makes it a much more manageable to where you do the D filters first have all those spare parts on your truck and then switch over the cartridge filters because sometimes you're actually replacing the cartridges and I have a three-year cycle with the cartridge filters these are for the full-size cartridge filters excluding the system 3 filters of course because those cartridges last longer and besides that those cartridges cost just as much as like replacing the whole filter it's really crazy so I usually the system 3 cartridges go for five or 6 years but the regular quad type cartridge filters you know the four 20s the 520s I usually replace those every 3 years and I make a note when you're cleaning the filter make a note in your apps make a note somewhere that you've replaced them and then 3 years later you want to replace them again again usually they last 3 years sometimes less depending on the pool but 3 years is kind of when I replace them so you're carrying cartridges sometimes on your truck and mixing both of those together I just don't have enough room on my truck and sometimes you get mixed up you forget to bring the car cges because you have the de grids in your truck so try to split them up de first cartridges second and that way you can carry the replacement cartridges on your truck as well and I mentioned the rule of thumb that you can replace 3D grids and that's fine but if there's four or five torn grids in that cartridge then it's the cartridge the D filter then you want to get the whole de grid set they sell them in packs of eight if you have like an FNS plus you may want to even get the whole the whole grid assembly that comes with the bottom bottom top manifold bottom manifold all the grids fully assembled for you to me sometimes that's easier than replacing the grids especially if the top manifold is getting old you notice that maybe there's some hairline cracks or if it's at least 6 or seven years old I like getting the whole grid assembly you can buy these at your supplier basically it's all eight grids in a circle with the top manifold and the bottom manifold and also the um rod and nut on top to secure it and you just take out the old one and you drop in the new one and you're pretty much done and that's the easiest DE filter rebuild that you can do so every single DE filter that's top manifold FNS plus Jandy Hayward they have the grid set assemblies available this is a kind of a pool Pro inside trick and I I would suggest if you going to replace all eight grids and if top manifold again is old 8 9 10 years old then I would get the whole grid assembly and you can drop it in there and since penter filters are popular in my area I'll just give you a part number so that you can kind of look this up and and see the great assembly I'm talking about so here's one here it's the part number 590 23300 of course you can just go to Google and type in penter FNS plus de element assembly or grid assembly complete and it'll give you that and so it has everything you just take the old one out again and drop the new one in and that filter should be good for a good five five or 6 years the grids last in my opinion they're not made as well as they used to be so every 3 or 4 years you should be changing all eight grids out they start not to be as clean you know you can tell when a d filter grids are going bad and you hose them off they still have that brown stain on them or some of that plastic skeleton the frame is cracked and protruding through the grids that way that's when you know that the D grids are going bad and of course some had have holes in them any hole in D grid will let D back in the pool by the way even a small like you know half an inch hole in the grid will let a tremendous amount of di tomation Earth back into the pool so those need to be replaced often bottom line stay organized use whatever tools are available to make your filter cleaning faster like the multi torque or the Cyclone filter cleaner or the orbits nozzle and you're going to have a great time cleaning filters and one last tip I think you should always have an apron with you if you do Pool Service have an apron so that when you're doing your filter cleaning you're not going to get filthy dirty the last thing you want to do is be covered in De and dirt and then show up at one of your stops looking like you just fell into a mud puddle so make sure you wear an apron you can get a waterproof apron um anywhere usually at you know your at Walmart or wherever and just wear that apron while you clean the filters also good if it has pockets that way you can put the spring barrel nut in one pocket maybe put a multi- torque tool in another or your Orbit's nozzle in your pocket that we don't leave it at the customer stop so the aprint actually has a two-fold purpose keeps you clean and the pockets help you stay organized you're looking for other podcasts I've recorded you can find those on my website swimpro learning.com just click on the podcast Banner icon on the banner it'll take you to a drop down menu over, 1400 podcast that I have recorded if if you're interest in the coaching program that I offer you can learn more at poolguy coaching.com thanks for listening to this podcast your week God bless real quick if you're not using pool serice software try skimmer free for 30 days at get skimmer back/ poool guy again that's get skimmer back SLP guy skimmer everything you need to run your pool service business all in one app Pool Service Pro open a Leslie's wholesale account today and receive wholesale pricing on products you use every day Leslie's Pool Supply offers convenient locations that are open 7 days a week another great benefit of opening a Les's wholesale account is Leslie's referral program get referred to a customer looking for weekly Pool Service save time and money and grow your pool service route and become a Leslie's Pro