Anyone have consistent luck with "in floor" cleaners??"

Jump to latest Follow Reply
There have been a couple of posts from people who have in-floor cleaning systems and still love them years later. But the majority of people posting about in-floor systems are having one kind of problem or another.
 
This is really interesting to me. Last year when I was selecting my PB, all but one (out of six) was pushing these in floor cleaning systems really hard. I was told:

They work great
They never fail
There's never any problems
If there is ever a problem it's only with the heads which are easily replaced with a special tool


The one PB that wasn't pushing them said it was a lot less expensive to buy a robot, and if the robot failed it was much easier and less expensive to fix or replace that than an in floor system.
 
Wow. My experiance is this:

You do need a special tool.
All of the heads must rotate in a certain way (they called it syncing) or some will counter act the others.
The only way to adjust them is with the tool.
Doing this is extremely complicated with out scuba gear.

End point: The robot is MUCH cheaper and at least it works pretty well.
 
Having had a Robot for about a month, I can't imagine it being any better. Cleaning his carts would be nothing compared to trying to fix a sprinkler head 5 ft under water. They just sound too potentially problematic to me.
 
My in floor system works fine. Pool installed in 2005. I bought the house in 2008, never had a pool before. Had to replace the disc in the regulator in 2012. I have minimal leaf issues as I live in the desert. Lots of dust and sand, a few small leaves from bushes. I bought a simple hose and manual vac this year as a few more leaves blew in than usual. I have had to use it only 3-4 times. If we are not using the pool daily I need to brush once or twice a week to move a few leaves towards skimmer or drain.

Don't know if I would put one in a new pool, would depend on the cost. But I love my system
 
In floor has been working great for me. Heads are very easy to service or swap if I need to. Larger plumbing and intelliflo pumps really make these much more energy efficient than previous generations
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
DrS said:
Wow. My experiance is this:

You do need a special tool.
All of the heads must rotate in a certain way (they called it syncing) or some will counter act the others.
The only way to adjust them is with the tool.
Doing this is extremely complicated with out scuba gear.

End point: The robot is MUCH cheaper and at least it works pretty well.
Click to expand...
Even though I am not terribly fond of my system, I've gotta say most of the points in this post are wrong.

You can easily make a "special tool" or use any number of regular tools to get the heads in or out.
It's impossible to ever keep them in sync, and they work fine without it.
There are not even any adjustments to make except removing a head when it is jammed or broken
I've never had any problem without scuba gear. Just swim down and twist to take out the head.

I agree about the robot though! Cheaper and better, only slightly less convenient.
 
Babylovestoys said:
I have a floor cleaner from paramount like the one pictured. Mine has worked fine so far but it is only had my pool 11 months. Occasionally the gray head doesn't pop back down but I just push it and it easily resets.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

same here. Our pool is roughly 12' by 25' rectangle, we only have two jets, one at each end, blowing toward the main center drain. They rotate a bit when they pop up every half hour. The installer for them put them in with a pool pole that had an attachment on it. took him 15 minutes for both, he never got wet.

I have a few areas against the wall, perpendicular to the axis where the floor jets and main drain line up, those areas need to get brushed.
 
Two jets don't seem like enough. I have 12 in about the same size pool. They pop up and run when the pump is on. They run in a sequence, two or three at a time, shallow end to deep end, about a couple of minutes to complete the cycle. Although they pop up at lower rpms, they only seem to be effective above 2000 rpm. They rotate about a quarter turn each cycle. Only one small dead spot in the deep end at an inside curve. Only a small area about the size of a large pizza!
 
Babylovestoys said:
I have a floor cleaner from paramount like the one pictured. Mine has worked fine so far but it is only had my pool 11 months. Occasionally the gray head doesn't pop back down but I just push it and it easily resets.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Just take the pop-up out and use 0 grade steel wool to clean up all the parts and no more sticking. When I moved into this house I took all of them apart and cleaned them this way. Haven't had any problems since.

I have to agree with some of the posters about the heads working great. So easy to maintain the pool with these things. However, I don't know if they would work well with two speed or variable speed pumps. Guess I'll cross that bridge when I have to.
 
Xexys said:
Just take the pop-up out and use 0 grade steel wool to clean up all the parts and no more sticking. When I moved into this house I took all of them apart and cleaned them this way. Haven't had any problems since.

I have to agree with some of the posters about the heads working great. So easy to maintain the pool with these things. However, I don't know if they would work well with two speed or variable speed pumps. Guess I'll cross that bridge when I have to.
Click to expand...

I have a VS with pop ups. Just as there is little or no skimming action on low RPM there is little cleaning from the pop ups on low RPM. I run the VS a few times a day at higher rpm for skimming and cleaning and at low rpm for maximum filtration during other times the pump is running. My VS has saved me money on electricity and the large number of timer settings available means I can run it off peak and save money there too. Love how quiet it is at low rpm.
 
Wildcat said:
I have a VS with pop ups. Just as there is little or no skimming action on low RPM there is little cleaning from the pop ups on low RPM. I run the VS a few times a day at higher rpm for skimming and cleaning and at low rpm for maximum filtration during other times the pump is running. My VS has saved me money on electricity and the large number of timer settings available means I can run it off peak and save money there too. Love how quiet it is at low rpm.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that bit of information! Will be getting the VS pumps when these no longer work. Been looking at them on the internet but I just replaced my pumps about a year and a half ago with the regular intelliflo's that I had before. They were cheap too at $400/the pair.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply