DIRK - Colore Paisano! What type of work do you do? My background was in photography and graphic design for print and web.
I was just checking out the Wall Whale brush I got. Any suggestions for the type or length of pole I should get? (the deep end is 5' and the width is 9').
Also, I see you have a Pentair Rebel, do you recommend it?
(amazon:
Amazon.com : Pentair Rebel - Automatic Suction Pool Cleaner : Garden Outdoor)
Almost same. I'm a graphic designer for print and web, but I do the color correcting
after photographers do their thing. I am responsible for making certain famous food items in magazines look like they're tasty. Probably shouldn't mention the client, but I work with a lot of reds!
I haven't tried the Whale. It gets good marks from many here. Certainly sounds like a good idea. Can't comment on pole length, other than a few extra inches seems to be generally acceptable. Oh, I meant a few extra feet. Mine is adjustable, so I think it goes from 10' to 20' or something like that.
Pool cleaners... yikes, I'm gunna need a pros and cons table!
My rebel works great. But I don't have a particularly dirty pool. The previous owners did an amazing job of designing my pool and surrounding landscape. I don't get much debris at all. Rebel stays in my pool, so I don't think about it. I run it every day in the wee hours. I can remove it easily for a big swim group. The floating hose can be a nuisance. It's often in my way (though easy to push aside). I wish I didn't have to look at it or the Rebel for that matter. The floating hose can't be helping surface skimming. It's not terribly expensive for the work it saves me. My pool surfaces are more often than not perfectly clean. It misses items periodically. Get's 'em the next day. It will crawl up the sides. It requires a good amount of RPM (electricity), and it "empties the trash" into the main pump's basket and the main filter. If I had a lot of leaves, cleaning the pump's basket would be way more work than cleaning the on-board gizmos of the other two choices:
I had a Polaris pressure side vac. It probably worked a little better, but required emptying of it's little bag, and a booster pump, which was failing. So the pool guy talked me into the Rebel, and I didn't question it much, so no research to back up my comments. The Polaris uses more electricity than the Rebel. But it doesn't dirty the main filter. It has the same hose issues. It also has a tail that sprays water out of the pool at the most inconvenient times (like when you're standing there). The spray reached my back windows regularly, and the previous owners let that go, which later required a day of mechanical polishing to remove the residue that neglect left behind. No chemical would work. I think the general consensus is pressure side is old school and not something in the running anymore (though they still sell plenty of 'em).
Robots are all the rage here at TFP. They clean well, and they brush at the same time (something my Rebel does not do). But they have a big black cord that must run through your yard, over your deck and coping and into the pool. I don't like that. Some leave their robots in the water, others take them out after each use (I would not want to do either). They're not cheap. But you can get 'em with remote controls, which would be awesome. They also have to be emptied periodically. There is a rechargeable model, but I wouldn't go near that, just another daily(?) maintenance chore. Robots use the least electricity, by, like, a lot.
And lastly there are safety concerns. Pressure side, I would wager, are the safest. Water is being pumped into the pool. They work by a venturi-type principle. There is no real danger to them that I can think of.
Robots need electricity underwater. No two ways about it. I would wager (with the money I won on the Polaris bet), that the real-world danger is incredibly small. But it is there.
Suction side vacs, like the Rebel, do just that, they suck. The vacuum port is where the real danger is. It has a spring-loaded safety cover that is not easy to open even when the pump is off. But that's assuming the safety flap exists and is working (they're just plastic, after all). So the scenario is: humans in the pool, vac hose removed, safety cover defeated in some way: pump comes on at high RPM, human gets its nice soft belly skin up to the port... insert imagination, suffice to say, it can be as bad as you can imagine (and this is not theoretical, it has happened). But like the electrical hazard of a robot, a whole lot has to go wrong all at once to pose the danger. My safeguards are the flap, an automated valve that shuts off the port except during vacuum time, and vacuuming in the middle of the night. Safe. -ish. But not fool proof.
Couldn't say which danger is more likely. Suction if you twisted my arm, only because a robot would have to fail to put electricity in the water, and then a GFI would presumably kick in. The suction danger could conceivably be orchestrated by accident if a person inadvertently did something (like put the pool into vacuum mode through automation while somebody was in the pool fooling with the port).
I'm sure that's only half of the considerations, others can add to the lists...
while Dirk does all of the heavy lifting! 
thanks Dirk!
