Is a sand or cartridge filter better?

Overall a Cartridge filter seems like a good choice for several reasons: 1. They are much smaller 2. They tend to pick up finer dirt 3. They are manually cleaned, so no pool water is used (sand filters are backwashed. This uses lots of pool water) However the disadvantages are: 1. For them to work properly again, they must be let dry after cleaning. 2. The Western Australian Health Department says that pool water should be completely replaced every two years. By backwashing a sand filter, you are always replacing the water. I live in Florida and I have a pool business myself, a cartridge filter is better than a sand filter.If a sand filter breaks it is more expensive to repair than a cartridge filter because 9 times out of 10 the top of the sand filter where the pressure guage is will leak and that means replacing that whole part or the whole sand filter.Most cartridge filters are 2 pieces, a top and bottom half with an rubber O ring in the middle. Most of the time you can buy the top half or bottom half separately saving you money on repair cost, and what usually happens is that the O ring is damaged due to the chlorine in the filter and or the weather. Cartridge has much finer filtering ability and doesn't require backwashing, which drains water from the pool. But it does require period cartridge replacement. Sand is much cheaper and less likely to become plugged with dead algae. The media (sand) only needs to be replace roughly every 10 years. For most people sand is the best all around choice.