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

[ouzoman]

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

[ChadH]

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.

[induce]

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.

[ChadH]

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