Question on suction vs pressure pool cleaners

[Pool Clown]

I'm a new pool/home owner, and I'm having a hard time figuring out if I should get a pool cleaner, and if so what type. I have lots of trees, and they're already dropping leaves in the summer heat. I have a plaster pool, roughly 25K gallons, with steps and a bench, which have been a pain to vacuum with the hoses and vacum head. I can't seem to keep up with the leaves, and the biggest hassle for me is getting the hoses in the pool and getting rid of the air so the pump can suction. Then I have to stop every few minutes and clear out the pump basket from all the debris.

Sounds like you answered your own question

With a suction system, like the Polaris 165, if I understand correctly I'd still have to monitor and clean out the pump basket regularly. With a pressure side cleaner like the 360, I'd have to check on the bag at the robot end, plus I'm not sure how well it would suck up algae since it wouldn't be filtered through the sand filter I have (I noticed with my manual vac, it does a decent job at removing algae). With either type, I'm worried about reliability, and effectiveness around the stairs and walls (it's roughly oval shaped). I also don't want to spend more than $500-600, which eliminates booster pumps and higher end units.

I would recommend a pressure side cleaner. Yes, a little more money, but i think you will be happy with the result. And maybe a little more time spent on chem maint., so your unit will not be responsible for dealing with the algae.

The Pool Blaster seems interesting; I realize it's not a robot, but it seems like setup time and effectiveness would be much better than my manual vac. But I still would not be sucking algae into the pool filter, and I don't know how often I'd have to check/clean the bag.

Any thoughts? Suggestions?

Sorry, but i'm not familiar with the pool blaster.

[aylad]

I have both the Polaris 380 and the Poolbuster, and I love 'em both.

If you get the Polaris, you're going to have to get the booster pump for it to run correctly. It does a great job on leaves, twigs, goggles, toys, etc that the kids leave in the bottom of the pool, but it's not great with really fine stuff, like sand or algae. I sometimes add a handfull of cottonballs in the bag and that helps, but it still doesn't get it all. It does do a good job, though, of stirring the stuff up so my filter can get it (we have a real problem with pollen and airborne stuff around here). It does not run well in cold water, however--when the water gets into the mid 60s or lower it really doesn't work well at all. Can't tell you why, but it won't. I only have to check the bag after it's been running for several hours, unless you have a lot of stuff on the floor of your pool--the bag is fairly big and will hold quite a bit of stuff before it starts bogging the unit down.

The Poolbuster does a slightly better job of picking up the really fine stuff, especially once you add the cottonballs. It also does well on the bigger stuff, but the bag is much, much smaller so the bag has to be checked and emptied pretty often. It's awesome for spot cleaning, but I don't think I'd use it for general, everyday, pool-wide cleaning. Others on this forum have had issues with the rechargeable battery pack in their units, but I've not had that trouble. Mine charges right up and works like a champ.

Seems to me that the easiest way to deal with the algae is prevent it to start with, or else kill whatever is currently in the pool, then you won't have to worry about anything but the bigger leaves and sticks in the pool.

Janet