George if you get stuck let me know, it would take a week to obtain and send to you.
France has an enormous amount of pools and shops but the knowledge is woeful
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Hi,
Came across this string on Google and have now joined the group.
How was your problem finally resolved? I have exactly the same - my filter is an Astralpool Cantabric 750 but it’s obviously the same as yours. I just made the mistake of changing the sand - and now it’s coming into the pool…
New laterals on order but having seen the position when I emptied out the old sand I have no idea how I’ll change them.
Oh - and my filter (installed by a previous owner) also seem to have had the poolhouse built round it. No chance of taking it out to get better access.
Thanks for any hints you can give!
Best,
John
The laterals unscrew so have you enough room to reach inside to do this?
I was referring back to a thread started by Highlander, which (I hope) should be visible above. The problem he had then , and I have now, is that in this particular filter the laterals in the bottom of the filter are so far from the aperture at the top that it’s virtually impossible to reach them,
I guess that to change the laterals it will be necessary somehow to extract the whole distributor/lateral assembly. But how to do it? That’s why I was asking how Highlander’s difficulty was eventually resolved.
In case it’s helpful I’m attaching a n exploded view of the filter and parts (if I’ve done it right…).
Undo the union and lift the adsembly up so you can reach them
Our problems included not being able to reach the laterals, and the filter did not unscrew. Laterals didn’t unscrew either and when we tried a camera to see what was going on, it showed damage.
The second filter was starting to go the same way so we bit the bullet initially ordering a new filter
We took off the pool house door and frame but the filter was still too big to extract
We’re fairly sure, since this was a former stable or similar,they’d installed everything via the roof and then put on a new roof. Everything else was original- and we’ve been correcting everything the previous owners did (English built/installed without input from French trained people) so the pool issue is just the latest
The pool will operate with just one filter although the original build had two. We’ve installed one (our ordering being dictated by the ability to go through the pool machine room door!) and once it’s up and running satisfactorily we’ll add the other
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From what I have seen the French trained people leave a lot to be desired as well.
We bought from an English couple who did everything via people they knew in the UK
We use a mix of French and UK people who have French qualifications
The sand in one filter had been tipped in with plastic sack eg - drinking water for the gites plumbed into the well (untested) - electric system and some plumbing uk standards not F - rather than properly fix a roof leak they simply left lots of large containers in the roof void to catch the water etc
French and UK professionals who have been sorting out the problems are bemused to put it mildly
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Towards the end of my work I began fitting multiple smaller filters that gave a bigger combined surface area and were easier to backwash properly.
Our door space (sans door and frame) is 780, too small for what we had so opted to get a couple of Haywards, which measured 760 each
We didn’t think about a number of smaller ones but it’s a big pool, linked to a big pool heater, and I’m not sure that the size/layout of the pool room would have worked logistically
The advice we got was that two Haywards would fit with minimum alterations to the existing pipework (of which there is a lot!)
Its often a problem, the time we fitted a Triton T140 (1.4m) was something. Two smaller filters fit back against the wall much better. That too was a large pool. Be interested to see/hear more of the setup.
Hi,
Thanks for your help and sorry not to respond sooner - I hadn’t realised there were more replies.
From the above it looks as if you eventually had to abandon the original filter and replace it. Seems extraordinary for a small broken piece of plastic! I have exactly the same problem of the door being too small to extract the filter (which will therefore come out in pieces if it has to be changed). So I’m prepared to try anything to fix it if I can. Astralpool sell new laterals sized for the filter so they must think there’s some way of fixing them…
Incidentally Astralpools say that it should be simple to remove the internals by undoing the external pipework from the filter. Presumably this didn’t work for you - I think you reckoned the pipes were glued into the apertures…
Every now and again I came across this, mainly due to an issue with a leak. That said 2 similar plastics, or any similar materials begin to stick together so the plastics can virtually weld themselves.
I can’t recall if they were glued or stuck but I know our pool people could not access them, even with the pipework off.
If the filters had unscrewed/opened in half it might have been a different matter
Thanks both for your help . Astralpool UK say there should be a male thread on the end of the pipes. Fluidra France (the Spanish parent company) insist that laterals in all of their pool filters are accessible by hand inside the filter. Maybe they have long arms.
I’m leaving the filter as is until the new laterals arrive. It’s useable - only small amounts of sand, easily cleaned up by the robot. And I’ve got bookings in the gite from 20 June - so it may stay that way through the summer. I’ll report when I try to make the repair.
Yes they are, if you cant reach then the alternative is to undo the union nut and move the lower pipe to the hub where the laterals screw in upwards so you can reach them.
Thank you - but I think this takes us very neatly back to square one! HIghlander found that he couldn’t reach the laterals, and later that he couldn’t move the lower pipe…
We’ll see!
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Good luck! 
Just to say its worth re assembling with a couple of turns of PTFE tape on the threads to prevent the plastic on plastic stiction.