Pool Vacuum Consideration - Robot Dying
I maintain my own residential pool and my Aqua Products EVO 614iQ robot is dying after just under 3 years. Before that I had a Dolphin that lasted about 7–8 years. After my experience with the EVO, I’m having a hard time convincing myself to spend another $800–$1,500 on a robot that may essentially be a 3–5 year consumable. Before the robot, had the Polaris 280 with the booster pump. Pump died and the 280 needed too many parts, so capped off the booster line, but left in case I ever wanted to go back.
What I’m looking for is pretty simple: something to regularly clean debris off the floor of my pool with as little setup/teardown as possible. I can brush the pool myself. The robot’s primary job has always been keeping the bottom clean.
Pool/cleaning scenario: About 15K gallons, rectangular plaster pool with a 1K-gallon round spillover spa. No significant tree overhang, so this isn’t a heavy-leaf pool. It’s mostly the normal lawn debris, dirt, small leaves, etc. that find their way into the pool, with some additional leaves seasonally in the fall. I’m basically looking to keep the floor clean on a regular basis rather than deal with huge debris loads.
Dedicated suction based cleaners will be tough as I only have one skimmer, and a main drain; no dedicated wall port, so I’d have to lose the skimming….or I’m dragging the hose and equipment out.
For those of you who run pool-cleaning routes: if this were your own residential pool, what would you use instead these ‘disposable’ robot?
I’ve been looking at the Bottom Feeder, Riptide, or Powervac – are these overkill for one residential pool? Seems like I could vacuum my pool in 15mins with one of these, and all I need to do is drag out the vacuum head. My goal is to have minimal setup, light enough to drop in, and good suction to quickly vacuum, with the ability to get the finer debris.
I already have a traditional system hose/vac-head setup through the skimmer, but I’m trying to avoid dragging out the hose, hooking everything up, vacuuming through the pool system, dealing with the debris canister, and putting everything away in a timely manner.
Riptide? Bottom Feeder? Something else I’m missing? Or would you tell me to quit overthinking it and just buy another robot? Or should I go back to the Polaris 280?
I’d especially appreciate opinions from people who actually clean pools for a living and have experience with these different approaches.
For your setup, I’d probably go with a portable battery vacuum like a Riptide or PowerVac instead of another expensive robot. Since you mainly need the floor cleaned, it should be quicker, easier to maintain, and you won’t have to deal with hoses or the pool filtration system.