Looking for a *better* pool vac system

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JohnGn

JohnGn

Gold Supporter
Sep 28, 2019
57
St. Louis, MO
Pool Size
19000
Surface
Vinyl
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
Hi, All! First time posting here. Thanks in advance for the wisdom.

I have both a standard suction-side manual vac (hose plus head) and a pressure-side Kreepy Krawly. Both came with the pool when I purchased the house 2 yrs ago. The auto-vac just doesn't work terribly well (always just circles in the deep end no matter how I set the directional jet) and the manual vac works fine but is a two-person job just setting it up and that's not always convenient. So, I'm looking for other recommendations for easier and effective manual vacs.

My GF is a flight attendant and she was at a hotel recently where the person cleaning their pool had what looked like a tall shop-vac kind of thing, and what it seemed to be doing was just creating suction and filtering it and dumping the water right back into the pool. It was electric, powerful, and seemed to be doing exactly what I would want a pool vac to do. I don't have too many issues with leaves, but I have tons of bugs, worms, and other stuff that I'd like to vac up and filter. It's also appealing to not have to vac to waste every time and constantly have to refill the pool and then rebalance the chemicals. Anyone know if this kind of thing is available? She thought it looked almost home-made.

Anyway, thanks, and cheers!

--John
 
I would suggest a robot. Maytronics makes a number of models. The base level that cleans our pool very well is the Active20/S200.

Lots of threads describing them.

Call Marina Pool Spa in Denver, CO if interested. They can discuss your needs/desires and suggest a model.
 
I suppose there will come that day when I don't want to be outside manually sucking up settled crud from the bottom of my pool, at which point I will probably bite the bullet and go with a robot.

Until then, however, what I was specifically looking for is any guidance on a better manual vac design, similar to what I described in the OP--namely, the kind where there's a vac head, motor to produce suction, a filter that catches even fine particles like pollen and dead algae, and just dumps the filtered water back into the pool. Vacuuming to waste every time just to get rid of the fine "dust" on the bottom of the pool is wasteful at best and causes me to constantly be adjusting my chemicals.

Robots are great for that, too, and if I find out that the super-duper manual shop-vac-type is even close to the price of a Maytronics Dolphin, then I'll definitely go that route when I have the bucks saved up.

Thanks!
 
What you describe is a system for pool maintenance personnel. Most I have seen are built by them. Do they work, sure. But why have a shadow system that works no better than the existing system you have at the pool?

Here is one for sale -- Standalone Pump/Filter system

~$1400.
 
I guess the short answer is that there is no standalone shop-vac canister system like what my GF saw being used at a hotel. If they made it themselves, that would make sense. She did say that it looked like a big silver shop-vac. I'm most certainly NOT looking to buy another pool pump and filter combo like the link above.

I think my problem is that most of what I vacuum out of my pool is too fine to be caught by the sand filter and ends up back in the pool. I did see an article on this site about adding some DE to my sand filter to try to capture the smaller particles so I don't have to vac to waste all the time.

That sounds like a good way to go for me until I can buck up for a robot. Thanks for the advice!
 
Your sand filter has an issue if it is not capturing the fines when you vacuum.

When was the last time you deep cleaned it?
 
I bought the pool 2 yrs ago. Previous owner had the sand replaced about 2yrs prior to that, but they didn't use the pool for one entire season, so the sand is pretty new.

I've never "deep cleaned" it, though. Clearly, I have a LOT to learn. Please elaborate! Or, just send me to a thread somewhere. Thanks so much.
 
There are rechargeable, hand held pool vacs out there like the Water Tech Pool Blaster Max. I think most folks say they work pretty well until they stop working.

I would definitely appreciate something that I could just grab and use for a quick leaf or bug here and there as opposed to having to breakout and setup all of the equipment to use the primary vac. But, I don't want to drop a couple of hundred dollars for something that is likely to break in a year or two.
 

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Someone just posted this on another thread. Called a Pond Vac.
www.thepondguy.com

Oase PondoVac 4

Oase’s PondoVac 4 features powerful suction and waste discharge. A two-chamber system for constant suction and gravity discharge. Get it at The Pond Guy.
www.thepondguy.com www.thepondguy.com
 
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I think my problem is that most of what I vacuum out of my pool is too fine to be caught by the sand filter
Click to expand...
Anything you can see with your naked eye the sand filter will catch.

Perhaps your sand filter is clogged full of debris (they return debris back into the pool when that happens). Perhaps it needs a good deep cleaning. It could be you have an internal broken lateral. But it's not because your sand filter doesn't filter fine enough.
 
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mknauss said:
Someone just posted this on another thread. Called a Pond Vac.
www.thepondguy.com

Oase PondoVac 4

Oase’s PondoVac 4 features powerful suction and waste discharge. A two-chamber system for constant suction and gravity discharge. Get it at The Pond Guy.
www.thepondguy.com www.thepondguy.com
Click to expand...
Yes, thanks!! That's kind of what I am looking for, but it is approaching the cost of a robot, so at that point, I just take your initial advice and save up for that, maybe for next year.
 
duraleigh said:
Anything you can see with your naked eye the sand filter will catch.

Perhaps your sand filter is clogged full of debris (they return debris back into the pool when that happens). Perhaps it needs a good deep cleaning. It could be you have an internal broken lateral. But it's not because your sand filter doesn't filter fine enough.
Click to expand...
Thank you, I will be deep cleaning my sand filter as soon as I can. I'm sure that will help a lot.
 
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JohnGn said:
Thank you, I will be deep cleaning my sand filter as soon as I can. I'm sure that will help a lot.
Click to expand...
Right now you can’t say for sure what’s going on in there. If you deep clean you’ll know you are good for quite some time *and* it could fix your problem while you are at it.
 
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JohnGn said:
I guess the short answer is that there is no standalone shop-vac canister system like what my GF saw being used at a hotel. If they made it themselves, that would make sense. She did say that it looked like a big silver shop-vac. I'm most certainly NOT looking to buy another pool pump and filter combo like the link above.

I think my problem is that most of what I vacuum out of my pool is too fine to be caught by the sand filter and ends up back in the pool. I did see an article on this site about adding some DE to my sand filter to try to capture the smaller particles so I don't have to vac to waste all the time.

That sounds like a good way to go for me until I can buck up for a robot. Thanks for the advice!
Click to expand...
My dolphin s300i fine filter picks up d.e. powder when I had a hole in my d.e. filter element.
 
The thing that will probably really spin your head is your problem is VERY likely not a filter problem at all.......it's a chemistry issue and what you see on the floor is dead algae. Almost no one wants to believe that at first but that is the issue more than 90% of the time.
 
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