Every Pool Needs a Pool Cleaner

Every Pool Needs a Pool Cleaner

Article by: Clive Wilbraham (Jim’s Pool Care – Sydney North West)

There are 3 main types of automatic pool cleaner. Suction, Pressure & Robotic.

Suction Pool Cleaners

Suction cleaners like Barracudas or Kreepy Kraulys attach by a pool hose to the skimmer. When the pool runs, the suction cleaner cleans the internal surfaces of the pool.

Pressure Pool Cleaners

Pressure cleaners like Polaris or JetVac attach by a thin hose to a wall fitting and are driven by their own pump, called a booster pump. This pump must not run unless the main pool pump is running.

Robotic Pool Cleaners

Robotic cleaners are attached to a thin low voltage electrical cable and run independently of the normal operation of the rest of the pool equipment.

Human Pool Cleaners

We also shouldn’t forget the human cleaners, the pool owners and/or their pool service men and women.

Every week, on any given Monday to Friday, Jim’s Pool Care service technicians will be servicing between 500 & 800 swimming pools Australia wide because we are entrusted with caring for the water health & chemistry and the pool equipment performance for thousands of pool owners and tenants who all want the best from their pools. So we are involved with countless beautiful healthy pools and we also see our share of pools in all kinds of poor health.

Frequently, we will hear from our clients that “the pool has gone green because the cleaner has stopped working.” Very often the reason turns out to be “the pool equipment has stopped working and so it has gone green.”

Of course in this situation, the cleaner will most likely have stopped working as well, so the pool owner might assume that the green pool was caused by the cleaner not working.

Generally, pools go green because of poor sanitation – they need their regular doses of chlorine. This is the subject of other Blogs in this series.

Pool owners can be forgiven for believing that a non operating cleaner will allow the pool to go green. Often, when a pool is not getting enough regular medicine (chlorine) it will start to develop a light green algae dust. An operating cleaner will pick up that green algae dust and leave a tell-tale path where the green has been removed by the working of the cleaner.

Where does that picked up green algae dust go?

In the case of the suction cleaner, it will be vacuumed through the skimmer and into the filter (sand or cartridge), and it will need to be cleaned out of there by either backwashing & rinsing the sand filter or hosing out the cartridge element.

In the case of the pressure cleaner, after being lifted off the surface by the cleaner, it will most likely pass straight through the cleaner’s own bag and be returned straight back into the pool and hopefully end up in the filter by way of the pool’s natural circulation.

In the case of the robotic cleaner, they carry an internal bag which acts as a secondary filter and the majority of the green dust will remain in that bag until cleaned out by it’s human.

All of the cleaners also pick up heavier debris like leaves and twigs. This function is probably performed best by the robots and the pressure cleaners.

If you don’t have a cleaner in your pool, you should get one.

Every pool needs a pool cleaner!