Son-In-Law and daughter bought a house with a pool.
Has a Polaris 360 (I think that is the model) pressure side using the return ports, not a separate pump. Not working. It appears they removed some small canister filter about the size of a large pickle jar and left the cleaning port disconnected from the plumbing. Currently the pump pushes the water through 2 canister filters, and returns to 3 jets. I would guess the cleaner port was originally a suction port (because of it's location where the pipe comes up, and years ago changed to use the Polaris for some reason. I figured I could cut the return line, put in a Jandy valve, and plumb it to the cleaner port and the polaris would work. The prior little filter thing was between the pump and the filters.
They hired the pool guy that worked for the prior owner until they get on their feet. He said I was off base because the there is not enough pressure AFTER the filters to run the Polaris. That was why it was plumbed the way it was.
So now I am thinking maybe returning the cleaning port to a suction and just getting a new suction cleaner might be a better choice.
Of course the pool guy (who is trying to sell them a new polaris and pump) says it will take too much suction from the skimmer. having run a suction side port and a skimmer for years, I am not seeing that, sure the skimmer works better alone, but not vastly better. Sure I think a robotic or pump pressure polaris would be great, but they do not have the funds for that. Plus they do not really have a tree problem, more just general dirt and such.
I told my son-in-law pool cleaners seem to be like cars to their owners, with people coming down a certain brand/type and not to buy into to much hype. He decided to clean it manually for awhile since it only takes like 10 minutes anywho.
Thoughts on any of that?