Stupid Polaris

[aichambaye]

We have a polaris vacuum (360, I believe) that came with our pool when we bought the house (previous owner left it for us).

I HATE that thing. It tangles, it stops, it gets stuck. We have a large pool, about 36' by 18' by 9' deep. Polaris will never clean the steps and requires more work that just vacuuming it manually.

I bought all the bits to just vacuum manually, which I do when I am swimming anyway - except now, I need some kind of in-skimmer-basket attachment so I don't suck up a ton of leaves into the pool lines. We have a LOT of leaves from trees in the neighbors' yards (small lots, in town, mature neighborhood).I have scooped so many leaves out I'm developing Popeye arms and that's not a good look on me, LOL.

But now it's also COLD, and the stupid polaris 360 is still a POS, and I am looking for a replacement or at least some recommendations.

(We don't close the pool in the winter. We live in Georgia, and it's only ever closed about 4 months anyway, and it's as much work keeping the water and leaves out of the top of the cover than it is keeping them out of the pool itself.)

So, I need to know 1. what the basket attachment thing would be called so I can buy one that allows me to hook up the manual vacuum and use that without clogging the pool lines and 2. what I can replace the older polaris with that won't require a lot of changes in pump and attachment (new polaris, maybe?)

[Teapot]

I don't like any of the robots because I still do a better job manually in a fraction of the time.
You have a basket in the skimmer to collect leaves and larger debris? I recommend a skimmer sock to increase the dirt collection whilst keeping it out of the filter.
You can get a leaf trap to fit in the manual vac line if you want to.
Polaris are expensive and use more electricity for the booster pump but don't produce any better result. My Poolgirl and I tested manual and robot against the clock, she was done in 20 minutes with manual. That was all packed away, time you clean robots, bags etc and the parts the robots miss, just not worth it.

[stevensrs]

Yeah, I found that if I put the thruster in the 12 o clock position, my Polaris tangles less and gets stuck less. The default 11 o clock position it would always get stuck on the stairs. 1 o'clock it went in circles. At 12 o'clock, it seems to do a good job not getting stuck.