Beez said:
So here's my question: Would it hurt anything to leave the switch to the booster pump in the "ON" position so that whenever the main pump turns on, the Polaris will be activated as well? In other words, leave the booster switch on to let the main pump timer control the booster pump?
Are you referring to the on/off switch/lever on the timer, or some other switch?
On a previous pool of ours (in TX), we had 1 Intermatic digital timer that controlled both the main pump and the Polaris together. The Polaris circuit also had a wall switch, separate from the timer. If that wall switch was on, then the Polaris ran in tandem with the main pump. If we turned the switch off, then the Polaris would never run, even when the main pump was on.
So, for us, there was no problem whatsoever with leaving the Polaris on all the time. The only drawback, as you've already thought of, is that the cleaner runs a lot more than necessary because it's running for every filtration cycle - unless you run out to the equipment pad and turn the cleaner switch off. For us, even in winter, we ran the main pump for at least 4 hours which resulted in more cleaning than necessary. And, it wasn't all that unusual for our freeze protection to be on for 24-48 hours straight at least once during the winter!
We tried to remember to turn the Polaris switch off during those cold snaps.
Have you thought of doing a minor upgrade and installing an Intermatic digital timer that can be separately programmed for the main pump and the cleaner? We had thought of doing that and, in retrospect, I wish we had.