How to Choose a Swimming Pool Cleaner

No one wants to swim in a dirty pool, right? As a pool owner looking for a swimming pool cleaner, it might be easy to quickly become overwhelmed by the options out there. This is a little guide to the different types of pool cleaners. Once you have an outline it is best to proceed by thinking about your specific pool, the time you want to spend cleaning it, and your budget.

Robotic Pool Cleaners

If time is money to you, then a robotic pool cleaner just might be the answer. Robotic Pool Cleaners are the latest and greatest in technologically advanced pool cleaning. Being Robotic—these cleaners are basically, plug and play (put it in your pool and turn it on). Once in the pool and powered up, a robotic cleaner will move itself all around the swimming pool; capturing all debris, dirt, and algae that are in its path. These babies are so advanced they will climb walls, stairs, clean around ladders and drains. Many models can even detect the size and shape of your swimming pool and others have internal memory to make future cleaning more efficient. Because of the technologically advanced nature of robotic cleaners they are at the high end of the price range when it comes to pool cleaning options, but depending on what is important to you it may be well worth the extra dough.

 

Suction Vacuums

A Suction Pool Cleaner, as their name implies attach to the suction side of your swimming pool plumbing. When the hose is attached and the filter pump is running it creates suction on the underside of the cleaner allowing it to move about. As the device moves around the pool debris is sucked in and moves through the hose and into the filter pump strainer basket, which then will move smaller debris into the filter. There are adjustments that can be made to components such as the unit, the hose, and the flow that can adjust cleaning patterns and maximize coverage. Too much suction can cause the cleaner to move to quickly and get stuck, so although flow is better for speed and vacuum ability you probably want to find a happy medium. For these cleaners to be an option you do need a dedicated suction line in your swimming pool plumbing.

 

Pressure Vacuums

Pressure vacuums run off of the pressure produced by a pump, it can be your main circulation pump or a dedicated booster pump. Pressure put out by the pump forces the cleaner to move around throughout your swimming pool and also pushes debris into the debris bag. Pressure vacuums work very well for pools that have large trees around or tend to get a lot of larger debris, because the debris is not getting stuck in your filter or basket which can allow longer periods of time between cleanings. The main con to a pressure cleaner is that it may not be able to filter out small particles through the bag, leaving them still in your water. When running a pressure cleaner it can be beneficial to have a dedicated booster pump as it will probably clean better (than a non-dedicated pump) and it will also extend the life of your equipment because it is not putting extra strain on your main pump; although, it much be much less expensive to install a cleaner using a non-dedicated pump.

When choosing which type of vacuum to use for your swimming pool takes into consideration:  time, cost, and overall need. Then we recommend reading product reviews and making and informed decision.