Underground wire chase for pool robot

[dgreenb]

I need to bounce this idea off some pool geniuses so they can tell me why this is terrible. I have a Pentair Prowler 920 (same as a Dolphin something) which is a few years old. I usually have the power brick attached to my garage wall under an eave and usually just leave the cord laying on the lawn that separates the garage and the pool. When mowing, I keep the the blades high and am just careful. This has worked thus far.

But, I recently got a lawn robot and I'm worried it's not going to be as careful going over the cord. I can imagine a possibility where the robot turns on the cord bunching it up and causing it to rise into the blades. So I'm looking for some way to get these robots to play nicely with each other.

My terrible idea is to drop a PVC wire chase (2in probably) underground between the garage and the edge of the pool and run the robot cable through that. I think I'd rise the pipe a bit above ground and put a U bend on the top of both ends to keep the rain out.
Equally terrible MS Paint illustration is attached.

So, has anyone tried something similar or have advice to make this a less terrible idea?

 

[Jimrahbe]

D,

Sounds like a good idea to me...

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[trivetman]

Is this a semi-permanent install? Will be a pita to fish the robot cord in and out when its needed….especially with u bends at the end

 

[dgreenb]

@trivetman, yeah I think it'll be mostly permanent. I wasn't going to glue the u-bend on though, for just that reason. I'm thinking further that I might try to find some guide rollers to make that bend easier on the cord. Then I could even wind the cord back on the garage wall leaving the robot on the pool coping when not in use.

The last option is to just get a battery powered pool robot, but I've not been super impressed with what I've seen so far.

 

[ajw22]

@Dirk posted how he buried his robot cord.

 

[TinFoilHat]

You don't have a power source at your filter pad? It might be pretty simple to add one, if the pad is behind the pool and not across the lawn.

 

[dgreenb]

@ajw22, thanks, I'll look for that.
@TinFoilHat, I do, but my pool has grass on all sides and the pool pad is farther away.

 

[trivetman]

Just a thought….What about using permeable drain pipe (French drain style) and leaving the openings level with the ground? Itll fill with water but should self-empty when things dry up. It would eliminate pvc U’s protruding in the middle of your lawn/patio

 

[dgreenb]

@trivetman, Hmm... that opens up even more possibilities... I already have a drain at the near corner of the pool. I bet I could add another channel to the drain box and run the cord through there. That might be the easiest way yet...

 

[Dirk]

You're going about this all wrong. You should just let them fight it out.

 

[Dirk]

If you can't afford that...

OK, someone already suggested my idea. I thought this through a while back, imagining how one might get a robot cord into the pool without creating a tripping hazard. I thought of drain channel, like this:

One with the right dimensions for the cord, and a somewhat-easily removable grate, to get at the cord. No cutting, no pulling, you just lay it in.

And if you really want to get'er'done, you could channel out the grass, the deck and the coping, and the cable would just fall out of the end of the channel (which would end even with the edge of the coping) and lead into the pool.

If you needed to remove or replace the robot, you'd pop the channel grate and take up the cord.

Mower should ride right over it. And there'd be no tripping hazard on the deck.

Allen is slightly misremembering what I had done. I don't have a robot, I was running a small 5V temperature sensor cable across my deck and into my pool. I had a groove in the concrete that was just right for the job, so mine was a "miniature" version of what I'm describing for you.


The cable runs through that blue tube, and down into my auto-fill well and then on into the pool to the temp sensor. So not quite what you'd need, as my cable is a permanent installation and doesn't need to be periodically removed. I later covered the tube when I applied my expansion joint goo, and it's now virtually invisible. I documented what I did here.

But if you use the drain channel idea, the results would be similar in that the cord would disappear from view and the channel could be flush with the surface of the deck and lawn, but you'd still be able to get at the cord when you need to.

The only real risk would be channeling out the deck and hoping to miss any rebar. So the shallowest channel that would work would be the way to go.

Frankly, this or something similar should be standard for new builds, so people can use robots without draping a cable across their deck and yard.

 

[dgreenb]

I like the channel idea, although I'm not totally sold on the channel through the middle of my lawn. I could route it to the existing drain box, which helps for aesthetic consistency. Then it'd just be up and over the coping.

Frankly, I'm leaning towards a cheapish battery robot, though. I'd keep the big dog for when leaves get bad in the fall, but just put it fully away when it's done.

 

[Dirk]

Sure, that makes sense. I routed it across the lawn because I think you said the pool is surrounded by lawn. Another solution would be to trench (as per code) and bury a conduit so you could install a 120V outlet near the pool. Pop it up in a small landscape patch (that I guess you'd need to create). Such outlets need to be a certain distance from the water (as per code), which would probably come up through the lawn. You could camo it in a nice landscape clump, which would also add some visual interest to your yard.

You could even build a vac house (like a dog house), also semi-hidden in this new landscape patch, in which you could garage your robot(s). WIth the new outlet right next to the vac house, or even in the back of the vac house. Deploying either vac would be a cinch. And the outlet could both run the big boy and charge the other one.

I'm lazy, I don't want to look at a robot or its cord, and I prefer landscaping over lawn... so that's what I would do. I've floated this idea before here on the forum, but I don't know if anyone used it.

It's obviously a much bigger project, but, ya know, I don't gotta do it, or pay for it, so...

 

[RayLovesPorkKebab]

How much about Pentair Prowler 920?