Pleatco PCC105-PAK4 Replacement Cartridge for Pentair Clean and Clear Plus 420, Pack of 4 Cartridges

Great value, works as described.

I am hard on filters. My pool gets very dirty during heavy Washington DC thunder storms and local flooding. The brick and mortar pool store sells the OEM Pentair filter cartridges and they work great. So why switch to Pleatco? The retail stores charge much more for OEM than for Pleatco replacement cartridges. I have been using these for 7 years. Mine typically last up two years but at this price, it isn't painful to replace them every year. My in-ground pool has 30k gallons and the pump runs 24/7 during the summer. I have had flooding with mud and trees dropping debris into the pool so once the filters get clogged, it is challenging to get them clean again. They can be washed with a high pressure hose. I read complaints about the bands that wrap around the filter pleats falling off. It is true, they do fall off after about two years but don't affect the function. I simply replace my cartridges every season or every other season so it is not a big deal. The pressure gauge on my filter housing consistently reads 2-4 PSI lower than the OEM Pentair cartridge but the filter efficiency for fine particulates is comparable. Fit and installation is a snap and the product quality is excellent - better than the OEM filter cartridges. These are a good value for the money and I recommend the Pleatco replacements as a suitable alternative to high priced OEM Pentair cartridges.

The first set of 4 Pleatco cartridges I ordered came with the plastic blue ring cracked around the top of one of cartridges. I reported problem to Amazon, received my replacement set in 2 days, then dropped the originals back at UPS store. These fit my Pentair C&C Plus filter perfectly. I've seen several people state that they needed to modify them slightly to fit. I didn't have that problem. Even the ones I sent back fit perfect, except the cracked one. Before replacing, the filter was running at about 20 psi. After the new ones were installed, it dropped down to 15 psi and I can clearly see the water flow has improved. Before ordering, I emailed Pentair asking them advantages of staying with their cartridges. Their response was "We manufacture our cartridges and test our filters with our cartridges. Our filters have not been tested with any other cartridge." Basically, they didn't provide any reason to not use replacements. In summary, I can say that these have been working great for me, saved a bunch of money, and I can see no reason, even hypothetical, not to use them.

I bought these filters before. For the price they do very well.

These replacement cartridges actually (and surprisingly) seem superior to the OEM cartridges in my Pentair Clean & Clear 420 sq.ft. filter. The label on the product states: "Pleatco Free Flow Cores maximize the entire cartridge by delivering better water flow rates to a greater surface area of the filtration fabric, reducing energy consumption and increasing the filter life. Pleatco Cores are engineered and not just PVC pipe with holes drilled in them." I'm skeptical of marketing claims, but this one is actually true. The plastic central core of the Pleatco filter cartridge that supports the filtering fabric appears to indeed be an injection molding design that is much more open, that allows more water to flow through all of the fabric with less resistance. Until reading this label, I hadn't looked closely at the original Pentair OEM cartridge core. It actually is a piece of 3" diameter plastic pipe with a lot of holes drilled, presumably on a CNC machine. I didn't take measurements of either filter cartridge, but I'm guessing that the Pleatco replacement cartridge "engineered" molded core is 80% open and the Pentair OEM cartridge has drilled holes equal to roughly 20% of the surface. That has to make a difference. The label makes additional claims re the superiority of their the filtration "media" (ie.the fabric), the "end caps", and the "Super-Bond bands" that hold the fabric pleats in place vs. the OEM cartridge or other competition. I don't know if these additional comparisons & claims are true or not. I can say that these Pleatco cartridges are a perfect fit in my Pentair 420 filter and the pump is now running at a lower speed with more flow (less electricity) and the filter at a lower pressure than before I made the change.

Had to replace a cheaper set of filters because the system back pressure was too high and the pool cleaning was poor. Cheap filters did not look blinded but pump could not get sufficient water through them.

They seem to be BETTER build quality than factory pentair filters at maybe 25% of the price. I took a chance ordering them based on mostly positive reviews, glad I did they fit great and seem to actually filter a bit better than the pentair ones.Update 4 YEARS later. I can’t believe that they’ve lasted 4 years here in arizona but they have.My pool runs 12 hours a day filtering on a variable speed pump. Overall I’m pleased with the quality of them and am going to be ordering more shortly.The bands have started to seperate a bit but they’re 4 years old and lasted longer than the factory ones did.I make a habit out of washing them off 2-3x a year especially in summertime when the pool gets dirty with dust and debris and they become mostly clean but still have a little bit of staining on them which is to be expected.Overall I’m buying these again and again as needed.