Lesson 10 - Pool Cleaners

    Pool owners always ask me what brand of automatic pool cleaner is the best. The short answer is POLARIS. Now here's the long answer.

    Back in the old days, there was no such thing as automatic pool cleaners. The only way a pool got clean was by manual human labor. The first mechanical pool cleaner (made by the Arneson company) traveled around the perimeter of a pool's surface. It had long tentacles that basically stirred up the debris in the pool so the filter could trap the fine dirt. Large debris like leaves and acorns stayed in the pool, to be removed later by the human pool cleaner.

    While not perfect, the system was better than nothing. The pool still required manual cleaning, but the "automatic" cleaner at least pushed the big stuff into two or three piles, making it easier to remove. The cleaner did have two nice features - it had a tile rinser that sprayed a jet of water to clean the tile, and the cleaner could back up in case it got stuck in a corner. Every pool that had an automatic cleaner had an Arneson, mainly because it was the only game in town.

    Perhaps the most innovative design feature was the fact that it got its power from a booster pump. It took filtered water heading back to the pool and sped it up fast enough to drive the unit around the pool. This single feature allowed the cleaner to work well even when the filter system was getting overloaded and in need of servicing.

    Then came the Polaris company. They kept the booster pump idea but changed the way the actual pool cleaner operated. Instead of floating on the surface, the Polaris traveled on the bottom of the pool. Not only that, but it would climb the walls and go up the pool steps. And instead of merely pushing debris around the pool, it actually picked up debris and put it in a bag attached to the unit. Pretty cool. In fact the suction power was strong enough to pick up leaves, rocks, acorns, sand - you name it.

    It wasn't perfect, but it was a big improvement over the Arneson. Now everyone with an Arneson began switching over to a Polaris, especially when Polaris came up with the brilliant idea of buying old Arneson cleaners for $50. 

    Other companies saw that there was a huge potential market for automatic cleaners and began designing their own systems. Most concentrated on trying to eliminate the booster pump since that was making the cost of owning a pool cleaner prohibitive to many pool owners. Thus you began seeing all sorts of contraptions claiming to clean your pool, with varying degrees of success. The best cleaner though was the Polaris, hands down.

    Meanwhile, Polaris did not rest on its laurels. It began development of a second generation of pool cleaners to address the problems of their original unit (called the "180"). Their new version was called the "360" and while it looked similar, it was totally overhauled and much improved. They made the suction opening bigger, the bag easier to remove, the drive gear system more resistant to wear, and the list goes on and on. Essentially Polaris made a good pool cleaner great.

    At the same time, the other companies (including Arneson) were perfecting their creations, trying to lower the cost and capture the automatic pool cleaner market that was growing by leaps and bounds. In a span of 10 years during the '80's the market grew from one brand of pool cleaner to ten brands. During the past ten years (the 90's), some of those companies have done well and went on to develop several different models to choose from. The Polaris company has six pool cleaners at last count. They even brought back the original "180", improved of course, for those people who liked that model better and want to save a few bucks. It was after all a good design.

    Most significantly, Polaris introduced several versions that do not require a booster pump. They too realized that there is a tremendous market for inexpensive pool cleaners.

    You may be wondering, if Polaris is so great, why are there so many other cleaners to choose from? Price is a big factor. People sometimes want the cheapest thing they can get. And there are cleaners that cost less than a Polaris. 

    Second, pool builders trying to compete in a tight market offer inexpensive pool packages. So they include a pool cleaner that is not very good but fulfills the requirement of being a pool cleaner. 

    Then there's the psychology of admitting you are wrong. People shopping for a pool cleaner often don't know anything beyond what the store clerk tells them. They are told this or that cleaner will do the job. They take the unit home, and if it runs around the pool, they are happy. Only when they see a Polaris in their neighbor's pool do they suspect that the store clerk might have led them astray. But who wants to admit they paid $400 for a poorly performing pool cleaner? So they bite their tongue and put up with the idiosyncrasies and drawbacks of the unit they bought.

    Finally, all pool cleaners are better than nothing. If I go into a storage room and find a pool cleaner, I'm going to try to get it working whether it's my favorite cleaner or not. But if a pool owner wants my opinion about which pool cleaner is the best at cleaning pools, I'll say Polaris.

    I must insert this. I don't work for the Polaris company, and I don't get anything for this endorsement of their product. I'm not trying to sell you a pool cleaner. I'm simply offering free advice based on 15 years in the pool business. They are not perfect or trouble free. But they are very fixable and if you buy one you will not be disappointed.

    Don't just take my word for it. Next time you speak to a friend or neighbor who owns a Polaris, ask them how they like it. And if they say they used to have a different brand of cleaner, ask if they are happy they switched. Rarely do you find that a person misses their old cleaner.

    You might think such a nifty automatic cleaner would put human pool cleaners like me out of business. Quite the contrary. Sure, many people who buy Polaris cleaners (or any cleaner for that matter) don't need a human cleaner anymore. But our business has not suffered at all. First, pool builders are building pools at such a fast rate that we can hardly keep up with demand for our services. Second, there is always a market for people to maintain swimming pools, even when there is an automatic cleaner in the pool.

    It simply means that our role has changed. We used to show up and spend most of our time vacuuming the pool. Now the Polaris cleans the pool and we are free to do all the other things a pool requires. We hose off the deck, empty the skimmer baskets, scrub the tile, clean the diving board, backwash the filter, balance the chemicals, pet the dog, and oh yes, service the pool cleaner. The Polaris is our friend. We make sure he's doing his job, because he makes our job a lot easier.

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