Water Tech Blaster Pool Max Reviewed

[MattW]

Well, folks, the day has finally come. I have had my Pool Blaster for 10-ish months, and it has finally given up the ghost. HOWEVER, I only have myself to blame for this.

To turn on the vacuum, you screw in a little plastic waterproof cap that completes the connection to the battery and fires the thing up. To turn it off, you unscrew it half a turn but, obviously, this breaks the waterproof seal. A few months ago we had a torrential rainstorm, and I totally forgot that I'd left the Pool Blaster outside (ironically to allow it to dry off!). The next day when I saw it, my heart sank, and when I picked it up, water poured out of the part where water really shouldn't be - inside the electronics. A few days later I could see the green corrosion begin to appear around the charging socket, so I gave it as good a clean as I could, and gave it a blast with some WD-40. It was reluctant to start the first few times, but I have to give the build quality some credit - it continued to function for over 2 months after this. A few days ago, however, it just could not be coaxed back to life after it conked out halfway through me vacuuming. I've re-charged it a few times, but still no luck. Peering inside, there is a lot of corrosion and rust, so I figure it had a good run, but is now pushin' up the daisies.

The interesting thing, though, is that I am just about to order another one. I have no qualms about it at all - it was incredibly useful over the past year (and I used it a lot). My only decision now is whether to go for the same one, or the slightly more expensive 'professional' one (I think it's called the CG) on the basis that perhaps the bag might be a bit bigger or perhaps it's more powerful, or something, but I've noticed a few threads with that exact question, so I'll have a read and see what people think of each. Anyway, I digress!

I hooked up the good ol' hose vacuum today to give the pool a quick once over (the first time since I bought the Blaster) and, I have to say, once the hose was hooked up, the actual vacuuming part is much quicker with the hose vacuum. There's less size to it, for one, so it glides through the water much easier, the surface area vacuumed at any one time is larger, and the wheels really help mobility. I got the sense that the suction was better than the Pool Blaster, too.

So, I figure, moving forward, I will probably now use both: the hose vacuum for when there's a lot of muck to pick up, and the Pool Blaster for spot cleaning when needed. To make a very long and waffly post short: there's room for both in my pool equipment! :-)

I hope this has been useful to anyone considering buying a hoseless vacuum. I promise not to mention the subject again! LOL. :-)

Cheers,
Matt.

[PoolDoc]

Thanks for the info!

[Racker]

I'm gonna have to update my post as well. My PBM conked out just a few days after taking it out of storage this year. I'm a bit torn on what I'm going to do; on the one hand, it is a great tool for day-to-day cleaning and my pool looked much nicer because of it. On the other, I'm not completely sure that I want to support a company that makes a product that won't last more than a year in many cases...but, it is true that I miss not having to pull the vacuum hose out once a week. Like Matt said above, the hose vacuum is better at vacuuming, if you ignore the setup time involved, but at the same time the Blaster also keeps a lot of junk out of the filter. I treated it well, and stored it properly, yet still it broke. I'm thinking I might open it up and see if I can't replace the battery, since I think that's what bit the dust.

Does anyone know if Pool Blaster has any competitors I could look into?