Suction Pool Cleaner Recommendation

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S

SouthernHiker

0
Sep 13, 2016
38
Columbus/GA
I've had our pool open at the new house for the first time this season a few weeks ago. It is surrounded by lots of neighboring flora, and I've been having to constantly hand vacuum lots of little tree tassles, as well as a bunch of dead algae from its prior closing. Seems I have to vacuum nightly or the debris comes back. Any recommendations on a good suction cleaner that can pick up small tassles and leaves, as well as do the job of getting all of the dead algae out finally?

Just FYI the FC isn't low, it's actually been too high for a little while now due to my new use of a solar blanket for the past couple of weeks.

I'm not looking for perfect, so budget options are welcome. I'm still happy to hand vacuum it a few times a month, just don't want to be doing a multi-week vacuuming if I can avoid it.
 
Last edited:
ramsfan said:
You can either buy a robot now, or do what I did and spend less now, and then buy a robot, thereby spending more. Save money, buy a good robot now.
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Maybe it depends on the size of the pool, if it's screened or if there are a lot of trees around but I know many people here who have the suction cleaners and they've done just fine. No intention or need to shell out all that money for a robot. As you can see from my signature my pool is only 8800 gallons and the suction cleaner works just fine for me. I guess it depends on what the OP is looking to spend.
 
SouthernHiker said:
Thanks for the suggestions. I am likely to only be at this location for one season, so I don't want to buy into a robot.

My pool only has a skimmer suction and two "jets, so not sure if the one above would work.

Welcome anymore suggestions??
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You can use the one I recommended without a dedicated suction line. You just plug it into the skimmer.


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This forum is very robot biased, and turns many suction side cleaner questions and problems into - " buy a robot they are better." which depending on your pool and debris may or may not be true.

Ive had very good luck with suction side cleaners and they work well for my debris size.

Suction sides are typically limited by a smaller debris opening,
If you dont have a booster pump the polaris 360 return side pressure cleaner will work with large debris and no dedicated pump.

I can recommend the Zodiac G3, or if you have a more powerful or VS pump a Zodiac T5 is a very aggressive mat style cleaner.

Everything has its issues and no one design works in every pool.

Im now trying an MX-8 which I will report on in few months time.

UD
 
This forum is very robot biased, and turns many suction side cleaner questions and problems into - " buy a robot they are better." which depending on your pool and debris may or may not be true.
Click to expand...

Guilty! I admit I do love my robot and I was sick of my old pressure cleaner not working correctly. Thanks for helping out. :)
 
I am running a The Pool Cleaner suction cleaner. It requires about the least amount of flow to work and thus I can divert a good portion of the suction to keep skimming (I have a separate vacuum port).

I think Hayward has a copy of it now too ... actually I think Hayward bought them out.

I do not like the Kreepy or similar due to the constant thumping.
 
The pool cleaner is a great cleaner.
Works on big pools and gets to the shallow end reliably.
Probably one of, if not the best wheeled suction side cleaner.

The wheeled or tracked cleaners have many more moving parts and require wheel,track, and gearbox repairs over time and in my experience always take a bit more power than mat cleaner to drive the gearboxes.

The mat cleaners only have one moving part thats cheap and easy to replace.
These thing exemplify the KISS principle.

I feel the mat type cleaner clean better than the wheeled type because the mat actually touches the bottom of the pool and drags along physically giving it a light brushing whereas the wheeled cleaners only actually contact the pool surface where the wheels touch - a much smaller actual contact surface areas - with the exception of the MX 8 with the rotating brushes which doesn't seem to have the reliability reputation the pool cleaner has.

My Zodiac products are quieter than my Kreepy Products but still thump a bit- with a VS pump its almost inaudible when I turn it down.

Robots are cool toys for sure, and can choke down some serious debris and leaf clumps that would choke a suction side in an instant.
In my environment I have continuous influx of very fine powdery debris from the nearby 10/405 interchange, this extremely fine powdery debris passes through the finest bags where as the suction sides get it out of the pool and into the filter. My DE and zeo for the last 5 years catch and hold this dust.

Happy cleaning!

UD
 
FWIW I started with a robot, when to the Polaris 280 pressure cleaner, went back to robot, and now want to go back to a pressure or suction cleaner. Thats over about 14 years. In my mind robots have their issues too. I miss the "automated" aspect of my polaris cleaning every day based on the pump timer. I had to stop using it because of a leak in the pressure line. Now looking at suction cleaners.

To address the comments above, from what I've read the Aquanaut is Haywards version based on The Pool Cleaner they bought out.
 
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