Swimming Pool Filters

Your beautiful new pool is a lovely sight, one you probably want to show off as often as possible. Behind that pleasant public face, however, is a pretty hard-working mechanical system that keeps things running smoothly.

Swimming pool filters are a very valuable part of this mechanical system. For the most part, the filtering process is simple. Let it go too long without attention, however, and your pool will be a big, complicated mess to clean up.

You'll find the swimming pool filters in the pump house. The number of pumps needed and their size depends on the size of your pool. The large tanks there, made of fiberglass, concrete, or metal, are the swimming pool filters.

The tanks are most often filled with special grade filter sand. Water from the swimming pool filters through this sand, leaving dirt and debris behind. Then clean water is then recirculated back into the pool.

The sand-filled swimming pool filters can be backwashed as necessary to pump the accumulated debris into your sewage system.

Sometimes diatomaceous earth (DE) is used instead of sand in swimming pool filters. DE is the fossilized remains of tiny coral-like sea organisms and has the texture of talcum powder.

For small pools, swimming pool filters made of corrugated paper or polyester cloth will suffice. These filters are quite similar to those used in your car and your home's air conditioning system and can be cleaned or removed quite easily.

The circulation rate for your swimming pool filters and pump system is governed by local authorities and filtering rates vary. The typical range for filtration is as little as 30 minutes or as long as six hours. This means every drop of water in your pool must pass through the filtering system that often.