Pool Cleaning Equipment

I love pool cleaning!

No, it's not something you hear everyday.  In truth the process of pool cleaning is pretty tiresome: it's hard work, it's tedious, and you'd much rather be swimming in the pool than cleaning it.  However, for those that look in the right places there is some reprieve of the sentence that is pool cleaning.

Many manufacturers and products offer what they claim to be the absolute horror-ending solution to your pool cleaning nightmares.  While we're not going to review any specific pool cleaning products (though we're thinking about it, so if you've got any ideas or indeed any reviews of your own, feel free to contact us and tell us all about it), we can provide you with the basic low down on what products fit what jobs.  Here we go.

Automatic cleaners

Wow.  That sounds good, doesn't it?  If you're thinking that this is some kind of Star Wars-esque android with a catch alphanumeric name that wanders around with a rake and a bin, then you're sadly mistaken, at least for the decade to come (but watch this space - when they come onto the market we promise we will do a review).  What this actually is is a small vacuum cleaner type device, complete with hose, that travels around the bottom and side of the pool.  It sucks in the water (usually it will be attached, via its hose, to the existing pump system), cleans it, then spits it back out.  Okay, so it's a little more complicated than that, but actually this is about as much as you need to know to use one.  TIP:  Leave in when guests arrive to frighten children and old people.

Pool vacuum

Leaves.  Oh dear.  Leaf it out!  Take a leave out of my book and don't forget leaf the vacuum off your shopping list; a vacuum is essential for clearing all those leaves that are magically attracted to your (previously) clean pool.  Other things will get in there, too, including some aquatic insect friends (both dead and alive), candy wrappers, and the odd bit of pizza.  Other than the pizza a good vacuuming can really make a difference.

Swimming pool skimmer nets

Just a big net, really, to take off those bigger bits of detritus that appear in the pool.  Small mammals, garbage, bigger plant matter and those pizza bits can be scooped up and dumped somewhere more appropriate.  Like a trash can.  

Swimming pool brushes

The pool brush really adds an effective tool to your pool cleaning mega-arsenal.  It's also probably the utensil that is associated with the hardest bit of cleaning the pool.  Brushing the sides of the pool is really hard work.  You need to do this regularly to get rid of the algae that loves to stick to the side of the basin, and sometimes it can take a real scrubbing before it goes.  The longer you leave it the worse it gets, of course, so you've really no choice but to scrub away on a regular basis.

You could of course hire in a pool cleaner.  If the movies are to be believed then all pool cleaners are young, handsome, muscular, and arrive at work semi-naked (hopefully the top half).  Don't leave them alone with your spouse, though, because they have an amazingly efficient track record of encouraging infidelity.