Supplementing an In-Floor Sytem

[71ailmar]

Hello fellow TFP'ers.

I have been wading through the forum threads reading about a variety of pool cleaners, pros and cons, etc and I'm needing a little advice.

I have an in-floor cleaning system that works well (especially when I put in brand new filter cartridges after being a bad pool owner and dragging my feet with cartridge cleaning)...but we are preparing for monsoon season here in the desert valley and there are times that my
entire pool is covered in dirt. Takes the in-floor system about 3 days of 100% run time and several brushings to clear out all the dirt/silt.
The multicyclone gets full pretty quickly which is a great help on the cartridges so I don't have to clean them as often.

I'm wanting something that I can use that will help with cleaning up the mess a little quicker without breaking the bank.
I think a standard manual vac that connects via a skimmer plate would be the way to go and just use a skimmer sock over my
paraskim V baskets? Even though that has the mesh bag, I could still add the skimmer sock for catching extra dirt or would that not be recommended?

The other option was to go with an automatic manual vac....like something from the Pool Blaster line of vacs.

Any recommendations as to which way to go?
And just for clarification, I don't have any side ports or multiport valves....the only way to manually clean the pool is via skimmer I believe, unless there's something I don't know about my pool which is entirely possible, LOL.

 

[ajw22]

Can a robot pool cleaner navigate the bottom of your pool and the pop up heads?

@proavia may have ideas.

 

[71ailmar]

A robot should be able to navigate my pool....it's pretty much a long rectangle with steps on one end.
Not sure about the pop-ups but worse case scenario I just the pump down while the cleaner worked although
that defeats the purpose a bit.
I wasn't thinking robot because of the cost involved and only needing to help the in-floor system when there's a huge dust storm here, no a super frequent occurrence.

And side question, when my intelliapp says my pump is using x amount of watts when my pump is running, is that a "per hour" reading (currently at high speed of 3450rpm it says average of 2.6kW). Just figuring out how much money my current pump schedule is using and what it's worth to adjust time frames now that our electrical usage plan changed.

 

[ajw22]

That is 2.6kw per minute, per hour, per day as long as the pump runs at that speed.

You electrical utility bills you in kWh. So run the pump at that speed for an hour and multiply it by your kWh rate.

 

[Turbo1Ton]

I bought a Dolphin Active 30 robot to supplement my IFCS but I don't get near the dust you guys do. I wanted it mostly for brushing the walls, and getting the small corners that the IFCS seems to miss. It does well, I throw it in on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and let it do its thing, before the IFCS runs, then pull it out. Even if the robot runs with the IFCS going, there is no issues that I've noticed with the robot getting hung up on the pop ups.

Not sure what other types of cleaners you could supplement with. Just wanted to throw out my experience for you.

--Jeff

 

[proavia]

Does the pool have returns separate from the IFCS popups?
If so, use those instead of the popups. This will allow most of the dust from a monsoon storm to settle.
Also, S-L-O-W-L-Y brush the settled debris toward the main drain so it gets out of the pool quicker.

For the few times yearly this may be needed, a manual vacuum would be the most economical path.

I have separate returns and use a The Pool Cleaner suction-side cleaner to vacuum after a bad monsoon storm. This cleaner was given to me for free (thanks Christina @clambert1273 ) and I've only invested in a few hose sections and a new set of tires.

I can't justify a $600+ robot to clean up after 1 or 2 bad monsoon dust storms a year.
Even the historic Haboob of July 5, 2011 only required three days for my infloor to clean the pool. There was almost 1/2" of silt covering the pool floor. We still went swimming during cleanup - mixing the slit into the water column helped filter it out. Needed to backwash the sand filter a few times also.

 

[clambert1273]

Does the pool have returns separate from the IFCS popups?
If so, use those instead of the returns. This will allow most of the dust from a monsoon storm to settle.
Also, S-L-O-W-L-Y brush the settled debris toward the main drain so it gets out of the pool quicker.

For the few times yearly this may be needed, a manual vacuum would be the most economical path.

I have separate returns and use a The Pool Cleaner suction-side cleaner to vacuum after a bad monsoon storm. This cleaner was given to me for free (thanks Christina @clambert1273 ) and I've only invested in a few hose sections and a new set of tires.

I can't justify a $600+ robot to clean up after 1 or 2 bad monsoon dust storms a year.
Even the historic Haboob of July 5, 2011 only required three days for my infloor to clean the pool. There was almost 1/2" of silt covering the pool floor. We still went swimming during cleanup - mixing the slit into the water column helped filter it out. Needed to backwash the sand filter a few times also.

Lol I'm glad you took it