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Ok, I'll lie, but someone else might not...lol.

What kind of pool pump do you have? Is it possible that the filter media may need cleaning or that you may need to backwash?

Also, please put your pool specs in your siggy so they will always be there when you post and we don't have to look for them. Just make sure you limit your siggy to 5 lines.
 
kathylee said:
..., but honestly i don't think i could handle finding out I have something else to worry about, so just lie to me and tell me that's the way it's supposed to work.
Lloyd
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Don't dispair! I felt like I was fighting a loosing battle when I first started. :grrrr: For the first few weeks there were times I thought I'd just tear it down and go to the creek to swim. :( However, Since I've gotten the chems balanced I go out every day and test the water and pour about 2 qts of bleach in it every other day. :whoot: Literally a 5 minute job. :party:

Once you get things straightened out and learn all the parts (there are not as many as you think) you'll truely enjoy the little maintenance you get to do.
 
Well once I get this auto pool vac thing settled I think I'm gonna fire my pool guy, who literally does nothing but collect a check once a month. I'm not that bright, but I know that if I can figure out how to raise two kids, I can more then likely figure out how to deal with a pool...or at least I hope I can. And now that I've found this great community of support on The Trouble Free Pool forum, it should even be easier.

Thanks to everyone!!!


Lloyd
Kidney shaped, salt water filtered, hole in the ground, sucking up my money.
 
...so you wanna start off with a robotic cleaner, and then possibly try something like poolskim if that doesn't work out the best?
I fail to see the logic. Poolskim or the like will set you back $100 or less, whereas any type of robotic cleaner will be significatly more....as far as I know.

Sorry to disappoint but no test was performed yesterday. My ol' Tacoma pickup decided to make my life interesting and break a brake line. I was less than amused while trying not to end up in a middle of a busy intersection. I limped back home (luckily wasn't far) and spent the whole evening taking things apart. Today it's a quick NAPA stop and a whole evening of putting things back together.
If you see my post with results sometime Saturday afternoon it means I did somethign right.
:cheers:
-99

PS:
Poolskim doesn't need "that much" pressure, but can't tell for sure w/o trying it on your returns. I may be wrong though...

PPS:
Dang it! A mouse drowned and found a resting place in my skimmer again last night; I suspect it may be the same mouse that did this last fall.
:whip:
 
Yes, I understand that this may seem backwards, but I need the robotic pool cleaner just to keep up with the dirt coming from the construction sites. My plan, and admittedly it's not much of one, is to let the cleaner do it's job, see how well it does with the needles and then make a decision about the pool skim.
Trust me, my wife will attest to my ability to screw things up, so I'm sure this will be no different.

Good luck with your brake line. I do lots of car repairs myself, like last week I added wiper fluid. I know it shouldn't take two hours to do, but I had some trouble finding the right place to put it.

Lloyd
 
kathylee said:
thanks for the lead. I need to buy them in bulk, I go through about 1 every two weeks.
Click to expand...
You might want to look into the ones on Ebay, homemade (or should I say Handmade -- sounds better somehow) They seem to be of more of a woven material instead of knitted so it won't run. See the posts by reallytiredteacher here somewhere, I think called "skimmer socks all the time or occasionally?"
 
Okay, just to update, in case anyone is still reading these posts.
Got an Aqua Jet robotic cleaner.
I think it does a good job, but not a great job. I think there are a couple of elements that are not designed well. First of all, the intakes are pretty high off the floor, they say they did this so it can roll over pool lights and stuff like that and not get stuck, but I don't think the suction is strong enough to make up that distance. It's sucks up pretty good, but again, not great. The lack of stronger suction is probably why it would roll over stuff and not get it all. Also, and I'm not sure of this, but it didnt' seem like both intakes work all the time. One works when it's going forward, the other works when it goes in reverse...again, i'm not positive about that, but it felt that way to my hand.
Also and this is the big one, the instruction manual that comes with it shows a digital controller and an analog one. With the digital controller you can set it to run for 3, 7, or continuously. The analog runs for two hours and shuts off. Here's the catch. If you get sent an analog machine you just got an old machine. The digital ones are the '09's (I found this out by calling the mfg and giving him my serial number.) I'm in the process of seeing if I can return the machine, since I thought I was getting the one where you can program the timer. I'll update after I hear back from the vendor.

On the positive side, the thing does not get stuck anywhere because of the way it works. That is a big plus. I think if you have minimal cleaning needs, it's a good machine at a good price.
 
You'd be surprised at how many times that post will be read.

Good info on the pool cleaner. Sounds like you'd give it a C or C+.

One thing many folks overlook when selecting a cleaner is the size of your pool. You cannot put a $99 cleaner in an Olympic pool and get good results. Always size your cleaner to the size of the cleaning job it needs to do.

Sounds like you got it just about right.
 

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I would probably give it a "B".
It does what it set out to do, I just think it could do a better job of it.

And after all the research I have done on auto cleaners, and I have been pretty obsessive, I have learned one thing. THERE IS NO PERFECT CLEANER. It's gonna depend on your needs, expectations, and problems. For someone else the Aqua Jet might be the perfect machine.
 
An update to my update about my Aqua Jet.

I got a call from the Mfg. today, apparently the company I bought it from hands their customer service calls off to the mfg., which is fine, I'd rather get the straight poop from the guy who built it.
Basically he said that all of the Aqua Jets come with the analog timer, it's the Turbo T's the come with the digital timer. You pay about $150 more for that feature. The guy told me that the analog one is the way to go. First of all, the digital ones can get a little hinky and break down. More importantly he said it's a good thing to have the machine stop after two hours, unkink the power cord (apparently after driving around it can get kinked, although this didn't happen to me), clean out the the bag and let the motor cool down for a bit, before resetting it for another two hour run. He said that's the way every Aqua Jet has been made no matter what year it was built. Also, both intakes vacuum in no matter which direction the machine is going, so I apologize about giving the wrong information about that.
I still think it sits a little too high, I'd like to see smaller tires on the thing, I think it would work better, but I'm no engineer.
I'm gonna keep running it see how it does.

Lloyd
 
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