New Pool Owner - Help!

[Chelsea123]

Hi all,

I just had my pool installed two months ago and it was the best purchase of my life. The whole cleaning aspect though, not so much fun. It's time consuming and well, I'm just not a fan. I was wondering if ya'll have any suggestions for a robotic pool cleaner, nothing too expensive (under $600), that would work well with my 12' x 24' fiberglass pool (I've attached a picture for reference). I've been reading lots of reviews on Amazon, but I never know if the companies are writing the reviews to sell their products/how accurate they are.

Any advice is very much appreciated!

Thanks

 

[JamieP]

What kind of debris are you trying to clean? Leaves, dirt? Sometimes that makes a difference on the recommendations. Also, if it is algae that you need to clean, then you may have an issue with your water chemistry and the wonderful folks can help you with that too!

I'm not an expert in cleaners or chemistry, but I do want to say welcome! We don't have a pool yet, but I've learned so much from being here. I hope you can too.

 

[Divin Dave]

Hi Chelsea,
Very nice pool you have there! Very nice indeed!

I can imagine until you get your lawn fixed, that you have a lot of that red dirt get in the pool? Same thing happened to me.
Bit of a pain for sure.

Here is a link to TFPs cleaner forum. There are some reviews there which may be helpful.
I can tell you from personal experience, I like my Dolphin Nautilus, its a very good basic cleaner and very reliable.
It is a hair or so over 600 though but you might find a clearance sale online if you look hard enough.
oh...the link.
Pool Cleaners

Generally speaking however, Dolphin, Tigershark (hayward) and Aquabots are the most popular as well as reliable.

hope this helps,

 

[Chelsea123]

Thank you for your help! The Dolphin Nautilus looks nice and it's within my price range. I'm mostly finding red dirt/clay (from the unfinished yard), and bugs. Not too many leaves yet! Oh, and frogs :-( may they RIP. I bought a Critter Skimmer cover, we'll see how that works!

 

[kgturner]

I just got a Nautilus Plus. It was $688 delivered and came with an extra set of filters. I got it from Poolpartz.com. I decided on the Plus version due to the filters being loaded from the top rather than the bottom like the regular Nautilus. Plus your get a 2 year warranty on the Nautilus Plus vs. 1 year on the regular Nautilus. It's taking it's maiden voyage right now so I can't comment on how good it cleans yet.

Kevin T

 

[Divin Dave]

I would like to add to Kevin T's post, that the Nautilus plus has a handle on top, which is nice for retreiving the cleaner from the pool.

The regular nautilus does not have a handle on top. I dont have any problem getting my Nautilus out of the pool, but some other folks might.

If I were to make a recommendation, get the Plus.

Here is a link to Kevin T's thread which about the Nautilus Plus. Hope this helps.
Dolphin Nautilus Plus

 

[kgturner]

I would like to add to Kevin T's post, that the Nautilus plus has a handle on top, which is nice for retrieving the cleaner from the pool.

Oh yeah! The handle. That was an additional selling point too. On it's maiden voyage, it cleaned the pool pretty good. There were two leaves left in the deep end, but everything else was sucked up. To be fair, it's been over a week since I cleaned the pool so I'd say it did well enough for me. It was pretty easy to extract from the pool as well. The fine filters caught *a lot* of gunk and leaves!

Kevin T

 

[Chelsea123]

Thanks for the recommendations!! I think I'll buy one in the Spring to take full advantage of the warranty period (since I won't be using my pool in the Winter)