I recently got the Polaris VRXi+ from Leslie's Pool. I am loving it so far. I want to use the program to clean my pool every night after the pump is done running so everything settles and the robot gets it. How much will I reduce its lifespan if I leave the robot in the pool all the time except when we are swimming and when I am treating the pool with chemicals? I like the idea of just programming it to run every night around 2am. I have had it in the pool recently 4 days in a row while we had rain storms recently. I would think it was engineered to be in the pool almost all the time since you can run it on an automated program.
Robot cleaning pool 25x7?
- Thread starter ikillratz
- Start date
- May 23, 2015
- 24,447
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
Can’t speak for Polaris robots but most folks with Dolphins leave them in the water more than out of the water. I only need to run my robot once every 3-5 days depending on how much debris is being blown around on the wind so my robot comes out of the pool a lot. Recently this winter I did not put it away in my garage but rather left it in the pool and cleaned with it. It stayed in the pool a lot of the time. The colored plastic components (blue plastic parts) definitely suffered bleaching and hydrolysis (white chalky plastic disintegration and surface cracking) as did the rubberized electrical cable. So leaving any plastic object in a pool of water all the time will degrade it faster, there’s no getting around that. I likely won’t do another round of winter cleaning with it but store it as I did in the past and do manual vacuuming instead.
Dolphin definitely states that their robots should not be left in water all the time but given time to dry out. That said, most people ignore that suggestion.
Dolphin definitely states that their robots should not be left in water all the time but given time to dry out. That said, most people ignore that suggestion.
I have owned three different Polaris cleaners since 1987. All have spent summers constantly submerged except when swimmers other then myself were using the pool (didn't want them to have to avoid the cleaner or possible damage it accidentally). In my experience, components wore out (belts, bearings, lost screws, leaking tail sweeps, etc), but there was no apparent damage done to the body pieces that I would attribute to the effects of sun and/or chlorine. Others may have different experiences, but, over the years, I have taken mine out during winter months when the pool is closed, and I have also allowed the units to spend winter months in the pool. I observed no effect on the cleaner one way or the other.
Caruso
Caruso