Tons of leaves & other stuff

Our pool (16x32 AG vinyl liner) has trees nearby and collected tons of leaves, sticks and sweet gum balls during the last extra-windy thunderstorm. I quickly discovered that with this volume of leaves the vacuum was not the answer (I just have the manual vac that came with the pool.) The leaves and especially the sweet gum balls stopped up the vacuum hose. I ended up using the leaf skimmer (and my toes) to get the big stuff off the bottom then vacuumed. All is fine now, but for future reference - anyone have any tips for getting a large volume of leaves off the bottom of the pool? Thanks!

I also have an AG and have a Polaris 65 automatic vac. In my opinion, it does not do a very good job of getting dirt out of a pool, but it does do a good job of getting leaves and other big debris. It might be just the thing you need. It has its own collection bag and no hoses that can get clogged. Do a search for it online.

If you have a hose connection off of your pool pump, you can use a jet activated leaf bagger, which will catch leaves in a bag and then you empty the bag. Costs around $20 from any pool store.

Pat

I have very little experiance but I can say that my 10 year old or older polaris 65 (used came with the pool) still is working. It needs a new float hose and the bag has to be replaced once or twice a year but I have several trees around the pool and it has gathered bags and bags of leaves acorns and small sticks (we never cover or close the pool). It is not fast or smart but it is way better than manual vacuming. It gets 95% of the big stuff. I called customer service today and they were helpful, yes after about 5 minutes I spoke to a human! I would definitly buy another one.

I just use a leaf net...gets most of them and then the vacuum will get the rest.

Pooldoc sells and endorses a leaf pickup made by Rainbow I think. You connect your garden hose and it sucks leaves into a big net. Keeps them out of the skimmer/pump/filter system.

See it on poolsolutions.com

Put some sheet cotton (6"x"6") or a handful of cotton balls in the Polaris bag--it catches the fine stuff that would pass through the bag.