Auto cleaners..I just don't get it...

[mbar]

I live in the woods, have a white fiberglass pool - my aquabot is a lifesaver, or should I say timesaver I would have to vacuum everyday & twice on Sundays

[CarlD]

If you have a pool of any size, an auto cleaner is set-and-forget. Vacuuming is generally hard, sweaty work, so we let a machine do it. Maybe you can do it faster, maybe not. The machine doesn't get sweaty.

The robotics (Aquabot, Dolphin, DirtDevil, Blue Diamond, etc.) climb and brush the walls. I haven't brushed my pool's walls in 3 years--the robot does it.

[waterbear]

Since I got Zodiac Mars HP pressure side cleaner I have not had to vacuum my pool, I only have to brush the top step and the swimledge since the cleaner can't get to them, and my filter is staying much cleaner since the crud in the pool is being picked up by the Mars! It's cut down on pool maintenence a lot and I can enjoy what little time I have IN the water instead of cleaning the pool! Now if they would just develop a pool cleaner that can empty it's own dirt collection bin I would be set! (I do have to empty the cleaner weekly. I am amzed at how much stuff it picks up. When I was manually vacuuming I only did it about every 3 weeks because that's how long it took for the pool to look dirty. When I see how much stuff the Mars picks up in a weeks time I am amazed!)

[steveinaz]

I guess we are lucky in that there are few leaves (we live in s. Arizona desert), and our pool is not large. Saturday vacuumimg is usually all I have to do, unless we get a serious dust devil that sweeps thru the yard.

[BigStein]

I am sure auto-cleaners are great. But since I don't want to spend the money, I vacuum, generally every time I swim. Since I vacuum often there isn't usually much debris to pick up (but I like it as clean as possible before I jump in), and it is about a 10 minute job. I consider this kind of maintanence fun, although maybe that will fade since we have had our pool for less than a year. And I certainly don't consider it hard work, but if I should happen to break a sweat then the first dive in becomes all the more refreshing.

[tenax]

it's kind of like kids and chores.."neato" to do the first few times..then it becomes another damn chore on the list i thought it was fun and cool the first couple of seasons..by startup of season 3 and having to empty my basket from the winter crap about 25 times while vacuuming..fun was not the word on my mind. now, i've got a leaf net and can say that the amount of setup has reduced considerably..but i'm still not having fun..ok, maybe it was fun for 5 minutes..maybe i'm a good candidate for an auto vac

[aquarium]

If your pool is already set up with a pressure port, it doesn't have to cost a lot to install a cleaner:

http://cgi.ebay.com/POLARIS-VAC-SWEE...QQcmdZViewItem

I have ours set to run a couple of hours each evening and it keeps the bottom clean of debris. I wouldn't ever want to go manual.