Legend and booster vs robot

[Gooseafcrna]

We are finishing up our pool design with the PB. It will be a 16.5x33.5 gunite with wet edge pebble finish, chlorine pool. The pb's basic package offers a Legend with booster pump or a robot. My wife will be responsible for the first several months of maintenance d/t my deployment training and subsequent deployment. I have never owned a pool before and don't know if we should go with the Legend and booster pump, or a robot. If robot, any suggestions? Thank you.


Eric

 

[duraleigh]

Robot, with no doubt in my mind. Other type vacuums are simply becoming obsolete as the robots get better and better and more types available. There is a strong correlation that you get what you pay for with robots.

With a pool that size, a mid-range(600-900) robot should do nicely. No one brand really stands out but Dolphin probably gets more good reviews.

 

[Gooseafcrna]

Thanks duraleigh. By the way, we have a lot of trees in the yard, so my 2 big concerns are ease of use (for my wife) and ability to handle leaves. Thanks.

Eric

 

[duraleigh]

I get about 8.764 million leaves each Fall. There is no robot "alive" that can handle that. Even the best robots will typically shut down after the bag is filled with maybe 100 leaves or so.

So, robots are easy to use (heavy 25 or so lbs) but they simply do not have much leaf capacity. The Legend is not much better, if any.

 

[Divin Dave]

Right. Like Duraleigh says, none of them will handle meany leaves. They just werent designed for that. And the size of leaf it will pick up is limeted to the suction ports on the bottom of the cleaner.

In the fall, a good leaf rake will be a necessity no matter which type of cleaner you have.

BTW, I second getting a robot. The things are great and are MUCH more energy efficient than a suction cleaner.
(you have to run both pumps for the suction cleaner to work, + you will have one more penetration through the pool wall. And penetrations through the wall mean the possibility of a leak occuring there.)