thepoolcleaner pressure side cleaner... so far so good...

[chem geek]

I've had ThePoolCleaner for a few months now (it was installed on June 28th) and found that driving it from a dedicated return line that was even partly shared with regular return lines doesn't work very well. The cleaner requires a certain amount of water flow and its resistance will force most water to flow through alternate paths (i.e. returns). I already had 3 regular returns and had to direct most of the flow to the cleaner with the pump at very high (and inefficient) speed in order to make the cleaner work. Also, though the PB said to just leave the cleaner in and working whenever the pump was on, that is annoying (to us) during use of the pool and trying to disconnect and especially reconnect the cleaner when the pump is on is difficult.

So instead I decided to get an electronic valve to switch all pressure-side flow from the pump to the cleaner and to set the pump to a low flow rate when the cleaner is to be used and run this during off-hours when we would not normally be using the pool. The Pentair Intelliflow would only go down to 15 GPM, but it turns out that this is about right for ThePoolCleaner on a dedicated 1.5" return line -- it's RPM is just a shade above the high side of its recommended 11-14 RPM and its pressure relief valve isn't getting triggered (which it would if the pressure was way too high). In this setting, my pump draws 540 Watts when running the pool cleaner which is a lot better than a typical 50 PSI booster pump at around 1500 Watts. If one needed to, one could have partial flow to other returns to reduce the flow rate, BUT I found that such partial redirection of flow is very unstable and inconsistent -- it's seems much better to dedicate flow completely to the cleaner and run the pump as low as you can (if possible -- obviously that only works with a variable speed pump).

Part of the cleaning principle to ThePoolCleaner is that it is operating whenever the pump is running so I was sacrificing this extra time by doing what I described above. Nevertheless, I find that I can run the system 2 hours per day and keep the pool clean (3 hours is a little better, but not usually worth it) BUT I have an electric opaque safety cover that keeps most junk out of the pool. When the pool is open and in use, almost every day for 1-2 hours plus 3-4 hours each day on the weekends, it does get its share of cedar needles blown in (we're torn between cutting down the cedar tree to eliminate its dumping of needles vs. it's beauty in our yard).

So I would say that a pool with a typically "too large" pump going to a smaller number of returns (1 or 2) could possibly have ThePoolCleaner on an additional return or one one of those returns and work OK. If you have many returns (3 or more) or a more appropriately sized pump, then you might not get enough flow rate.

The only other "issue" I noticed was that ThePoolCleaner tends to want to clean the deep end more frequently than the shallow end. I've tried adjusting the floats to exactly the way that is recommended, but it still seems to happen. So the cleaner does seem to need to be run for at least 2 hours or more in order to have a reasonable probability of getting the shallow end clean.

The cleaner bag seems much better than the Letro Legend bag I had. It's not only fine to catch small debris (dirt), but the velcro portion is on the side instead of the top and is strong so it stays closed. My Letro Legend bag typically needed paper clips or other assistance to stay closed after a year -- we'll see how ThePoolCleaner holds up after that time, but it "seems" more sturdy.

Overall, I'm very happy with ThePoolCleaner as it is saving me quite a bit of electricity and lets me have a single (variable speed) pump, but I did have to figure out a setup that works for me. It does not seem to be a powerfully efficient cleaner the way a robot would be so for pools that get a lot of junk I suspect ThePoolCleaner would need to be run pretty much the entire time the pump is running (say, 8 hours per day), but that's just a guess on my part.

Richard