Polaris or Paramount?--which keeps your pool cleaner with less hassle?

I'm in the process of checking out fiber glass IG pools and one company sells this Paramount in floor cleaning system priced at $4K. http://www.paramountpoolproducts.com/

They claim one will spend approx 80% of the 4K within about four years of owning the Polaris as we were told that it is repair part intensive. Does anyone have any model Polaris (or any other pool cleaner recommendation) that you use in your pool and whether or not you've had to replace parts and at what cost? I just think the cost of this Paramount vs paying about $1000 for another good cleaner might be a more of aploy to get an unsuspecting person to spend money, more than it is about efficiency.

I am in the process of replacing my Polaris 380 with booster pump with a robotic after using for 8 years. The only reason I am replacing it is that the booster line cracked under the concrete and it was going to cost me about $600 to fix the line. The unit works great and I have only replaced the belts on it in 8 years of service. They make a great product. It does not do everything the robotics do, but it is a good product that served me well for 8 years.

I had a paramount in-floor system put in my gunnite pool when it was built. I don't regret it for a second, but if the company is claiming it will save you money, they're spreading it out over a long time. I think Paramount makes some of the best in-floor systems. but we did it for convenience rather than savings

When we moved to AZ, we rented a house with an IG pool for a year before buying so we could decide if we wanted a pool. Our rental had a suction side cleaner which worked well with limitations, but we grew tired of hauling it in and out of the pool and more often that not we just left it in all the time and swam around it. We heard horror stories about in-floor cleaning. Most of the complaints care from people whose system had complicated heads with lots of moving parts. They would invariably get some piece of debris caught in the mechanism and jam the head. Our landlord bought a house with a Paddock pool with in-floor cleaning (same parent company as Paramount.) After the 1st few weeks of listening to his "issues", all of his complaints turned to praise as he started maintaining the pool properly.

When we went to have our pool built we decided we wanted in-floor cleaning. After doing some research, we decided on the Paramount PV-3 system because the heads are so simple. No springs, no ratchets, virtually nothing to go wrong and a lifetime guarantee on the heads to boot!

After 2 years, we don't regret out choice for a minute, but it wasn't about saving money, it was about walking out and having a sparkling clean pool each and every time with no hose , cords or other junk. So far it has worked out great.

A pool with a properly designed in-floor system is far more involved than a standard pool, I chose a builder with a lot of experience with the system I was using and he still had Paramount do a good piece of the design work on our pool.

I'd imagine a fiberglass pool installer would only have to get a good design once for each of the models they sell.

There are some downsides to running in-floor cleaning. It generally requires an oversized pump. Plumbing in Solar can be a lot more troublesome if you don't plan for it ahead of time.

My advice, if you do go for in-floor. 1) you still want regular returns (maybe deep returns of you want to do solar.) 2) you still want a dedicated vacuum port. 3) You may want to consider a second pump to run the in-floor. 4) Take a look at the diagrams on powermat.com for systems with Solar and in-floor. Even if you don't plan to do solar, you never know when you might want to in the future.

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There are some downsides to running in-floor cleaning. It generally requires an oversized pump. Plumbing in Solar can be a lot more troublesome if you don't plan for it ahead of time.

My advice, if you do go for in-floor. 1) you still want regular returns (maybe deep returns of you want to do solar.) 2) you still want a dedicated vacuum port. 3) You may want to consider a second pump to run the in-floor. 4) Take a look at the diagrams on powermat.com for systems with Solar and in-floor. Even if you don't plan to do solar, you never know when you might want to in the future.

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:confused: ok.. I was doing good until I got here and this is where you lost me. What does solar have anything to do with Paramount in floor? I live in South Carolina and don't have any use for a pool heater. Can you please clarify these statements for me? Otherwise, the advice is great..Thanks

There is some good and very interesting information in this thread. I am interested in any further progression of the discussion of in-floor systems and particularly with regards to adding solar to the mix.

I am in this category exactly. We have the Paramount in-floor cleaning system. Because of this we have a good sized 2hp pump and an overall high pressure system to jet wash the floors clean. And like mentioned above, now that we are adding solar panels to the mix we are running into the pitfalls of this combination. The In-Floor system likes high pressure and the Solar system does not. I have the system up and running but am concerned that I probably have too much pressure going through the solar panels. I'm still working on deciding what I want to do about that.

Regarding the Paramount In-Floor cleaning system I would say that I am now a fan of this system. It has worked out great for us. For a long time I wondered if the system was really doing very much. We have an automatic solid cover and I thought that maybe the pool was staying mostly clean due to the cover and that the Paramount system was not doing too much. well, recently I pulled out my pop up heads due to some flow/pressure testing that I was doing regarding the above mentioned solar install/pressure issue. I left the in-floor system basically disabled for a week or two and was amazed at how much debris accumulated at the bottom of the pool. I've vacuumed maybe three times in the last couple years but mostly the Paramount system has been doing all the work for me. Got to love that!

I recently came across an Aquabot automatic cleaner at a garage sale for cheap and picked it up out of curiosity. It works ok. It seems to get stuck on my steps a lot. I've tried different 'float' inserts but no luck overcoming this issue. Maybe if I get all new tracks it would work better. Anyhow, the in-floor system would be my choice over this because it just does its thing. The aquabot has to be inserted, cleaned, un-stuck, removed etc. Not downgrading the Aquabot by any means, (my neighbor loves his) I just am glad that ours already has the Paramount installed.

I hope this helps and I hope that more users can input their experiences and thoughts.
Thanks

Greetings to this great forum:

I'll chime in on the side of praising the Paramount in-floor system (installed by Paddock for me). It's been eight years of minimal (zero for the in-floor) maintenance and a clear pool every morning . . . . lately however I notice the heads don't retract completely (once the pumps are off), or some don't pop up all the way; I checked for any debris stuck in the heads, everything looks clean.
Chad, you mentioned pressure/flow testing - I'm thinking that might be the next thing to investigate. By the way I have a separate pump for the in-floor.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

Yes, I do get the occasional 'stuck' pop-up head. It is really rare though, maybe 3 or 4 per year. It is usually a small rock or some little debris and/or the head is just slightly offset/wedged in. Our system is probably 12+ years old and maybe the wedging is due to slight wear down of the heads themselves. To clear them, I swim down give it a few small taps and it usually is freed up. Then I wait until the zone is pressurized and push the plunger (head) up and down a few times to try to flush out any debris.

The other time that the heads are still up after the pump is off is during the solar drain down period. All the water from the roof mounted solar panels slowly drains back into the pool via gravity after the pump is off.

Going back to the initial thread theme, to me this seems like a fairly minor issue and any cleaning system is going to require little bits of maintenance here and there.

One stupid question:

How does the in-floor system handle leaves?
we had a Polaris 280 last time (loved it) and we are building a new pool and the builder is now installing the Paramount in-floor as standard equipment. Decision time.
thanks for input.

No, it is not a bad question. Unfortunately I don't have a solid answer. I have a solid cover so most of my debris is smaller tree needles and particles. Most of my larger debris (which I would categorize the leave issue) would end up in my strainer basket. I know some Paramount systems come with an optional 'debris removal' canister but I do not have one and can't say how it works. Check out the below link, they have some graphics and details.

http://www.paramountpoolproducts.com/

Good Luck