Re: New homeowner and pool newbie...whats the best pool vac
Welcome,
To try to answer your question, there is no one right answer because every pool is different, the cleaner that might work great in one pool where dirt is the problem may get stuck with nuts in its wheels / tracks if there is a pecan tree nearby. I will also assume from your question that you are mostly looking at suction side cleaners at this point, I owned several of them over the years, before switching to a robotic cleaner a couple of years ago. In general I found the suction side cleaners all worked to some degree, some worked better than others, but adding more dollars did not improve their ability to clean. I have owned $300 models which would get stuck between my ladder and the pool corner consistently, and $70 ones that would never get hung up. More money may not buy you better cleaning power, but what it does generally buy you is higher quality parts and often quieter operation, the second may or may not be a factor for you depending on where your pool is located, the older / cheaper designed use a mechanical valve that makes a clack,clack,clack sound while operating, this could get annoying if your pool is located outside your bedroom window, or if you plan to relax around the pool while it runs. On the other point about quality, this tends to go through the whole unit, hose, etc. while the $70 unit mentioned about bought at Lowes cleaned great, it did start falling apart within about a week (snap together weight fell apart, fixed by adding a screw and nut through existing center hole), within 2-3 months other plastic snap together hose sections became so loose it would fall apart lifting it out of the pool, after a year or so I gave up on patching it back together, by comparison I still have the high quality one piece hose off my long dead Kreepy Krauly which itself lasted for several years. .
Ike
