Dedicated in-pool "garage" for robot cleaner?

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platipus

platipus

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Feb 25, 2015
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Houston, TX
Admins, please move to Pool Cleaners sub-forum if this is the wrong place. My question is more design related though so I thought this was the best spot.

So we're hopefully only 2 - 3 weeks out from signing with a builder and we're down to the nitty-gritty. We're not going with in-floor cleaning so a robot seems to be where we will land. Given that, I wanted to put some thought into what to do with the robot to make it beyond simple and convenient.

Has anyone ever built or seen a dedicate "garage", cubby, shelf or whatever for a cleaning robot?

Are there any issues with leaving them in the water or partially submerged?

Are their any robots that can return to a specific spot when they are done cleaning?

What I am thinking about is adding to the design a dedicated and hidden or out of the way mini-shelf for the robot to stay when it's not running. At one end of the pool, we will have a 5' raised wall that if I wanted, I think I could add a kind of "grotto" entrance with a small shallow shelf behind that wall for the robot to stay when not in use. It would then be able to just scoot off and go do its thing without any need to place it in the water. The rest of the time it could just sit there waiting and hidden/out of the way. If I could get it to return to this spot when it was finished, this of course would be beyond cool. The question would be how to get the cord to wind up or I guess I could look at a cordless cleaner.

Anyway, just looking for any creative ideas, thoughts or actual experience with something like this.


Thanks!
-plat
 
I guess first, you probably should contact the robot manufacturer directly about leaving them in the pool full time. Certainly they are designed to be underwater a good bit of time, but who knows. Maybe the manufacturers might have some warranty fine print about that.

Many robots have remote control these days, so thats the most likely way of parking it.
 
+1 for checking the fine print of the mfr warranty.

Although I have a pressure-side cleaner that was well out of warranty, I can tell you what happened when I left it in the water through the winter the first year we had the pool. We keep our pool open year-round and continue to maintain the chlorine and water balance. Because of that, I was told it was fine to leave the cleaner in the water even during the winter. Well...come spring, it had a few issues. Nearly all the hoses needed to be replaced along with most of the swivels - that was no big deal. However, the cleaner itself needed to go in for service since a couple of the internal plastic pieces broke. Here is where I learned that leaving the cleaner in the water through the winter was not the best idea. Cold water tends to make plastics more brittle and susceptible to breakage and malfunction. Seems to be holding true as I have not had to take the cleaner in for service since then (going on 5 years). While I do keep the cleaner in the water during most of the summer swim season, it will be in the water during the off-season only when it is being used.
 
Points well taken. I think at a minimum, I will look into some kind of protected storage house behind that wall. My goal here is to make it extremely convenient to get the robot back into the pool.

One thing I will say is that I SWEAR I saw this idea already in a slick marketing video for one of the robot makers. It was in a very modern and high end rectangular pool. I've looked and looked but can't find it again...

Thanks
-plat
 
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