Customer Reviews

Pool Buster Max Handheld Pool Cleaner With Nozzle

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I don't know what the deal is with the first reviewer. This product is great. I purchased the "max" PoolBuster two years ago. My only problem is that last year the battery would not take a charge. WaterTech (the manufacturer) replaced the whole unit... and had the replacement to me within days of sending them the old unit.
Bottom line is that the PoolBuster is a real work saver... you can vacuum a pool like mine (16 x 32 inground) in about 20 minutes without getting out the vacuum hose and having to backwash after vacuuming. Only thing you should buy is the extra fine collection bag for vacumming find debris.

I have an inground pool that is cleaned by a Letro Legend automatic cleaner that was installed prior to my ownership. For the most part it does a good job but there is always some debris left behind. Based on the reviews here I decided to try the Pool Buster. I was VERY pleseantly suprised by this product. Strong suction, easy to use and charges qucikly yet runs a long time. One nice thing is it is just heavy enough that it always stays on the bottom when you are moving around so it is always cleaning and not floating away. The picture for the PB shows it cleaning up this horribly messy pool and based on my experience that is a true picture, not a photoshop. This product is great and I can recommend it without any hesitation.

p.s. This is not a critisism, just an observation, it cannot clean the top step of my pool as it is not deep enough to be submerged. So it helps to brush off the top step to the second step, which is deep enough for the PB to get to under water.

I don't know what the previous reviewer is talking about, but he must have a competitive product that he sells. This product is great and well worth the money. I have a spa attached to my pool and with everyone going in and out of it constantly, there's always fine particled sand and dirt at the bottom. It's a pain to have to drag out the hose and vacuum to constantly keep it clean. This product has a lot of suction and is easy to use. I can keep it out by my spa to touch it up during the day. I also use it to clean the bottom on my pool when there's been a lot of children over and I don't want to keep the Polaris running constantly. It's well worth the money!!!POOL BUSTER MAX VACUUM 2006Pool Buster Max Above Ground Pool CleanerPool Buster Max In-Ground Pool Cleaner

This is my third season with a Pool Blaster. In my opinion it is the best utility product ever created for swimming pools.

My current pool is 20' x 40' inground, and has two skimmer returns. For some reason, I think because of the multiple returns, I have never had much success with this pool in getting good suction thru a traditional vacuum hose.

I also have a Polaris cleaning unit. If you give the Polaris hours of electricty, it will indeed clean "most" of your pool. However, it never gets everything on the bottom. Every Polaris owner is familiar with the frustration of watching the unit head directly for the debris they are most interested in having removed, only to Exit Stage Left just before it arrives in that area.

The Pool Blaster has plenty of suction. It is indeed not for large leaves and objects, just scoop them out with your net first. Smaller leaves, pine straw, dead rolly pollies and worms, and any of the other small debris that dots the bottom of your pool come up quickly and easily. Unlike some of the negative reviews here, in my experience the filter bag that comes with the unit is sufficient to remove most algae particles, especially if you have had the foresight to use some clarifier a bit earlier to glob them up (some people just don't know how to maintain their pools in the first place).

The collection bag has more than sufficient capacity to handle a single cleaning of the pool without being emptied. If you have let an enormous amount of debris pile up, you might have to take 90 seconds to pull the Blaster out of the pool and empty the bag. What a major chore! LOL The bag cleans easily by holding it open with a hand inside and rinsing it with a hose. If all you have are dead bugs and debris inside, simply shaking it into the grass is sufficient.

Another hint: If you have too many large leaves on the bottom of your pool then you are not emptying your skimmer basket often enough, and not using your skimmer net often enough. I do not regard the Pool Blaster as a magic solution to lazy pool maintenance. It is a wonderful solution for normal vacuuming.

Using this tool, I'm able to clean the bottom of my pool to spotless condition in just a few minutes. In fact, its fun to use. I've had it out and in use a few times when friends showed up for cook outs. Someone invariably wants to take over from me because they think the process looks cool. I've threatened to start charging a fee to let them. LOL

The battery charge is more than sufficient to cover every square inch of my pool with charge to spare. Of course the more frequently you clean your pool, the less time you spend on each cleaning.

If you notice that the unit isn't immediately picking up some particles, its for one of two reasons. Either the collection bag is full to overflowing, or the battery is running down. Correct either or both of these issues and you are good to go.

There is one warning. There is a twist in "button" that closes the battery compartment and turns the unit on. It has a rubber gasket that made me think the battery compartment is water tight. It turns out that I was mistaken about this. After use you MUST turn the unit around at various angles and pour all the water out of it, including opening the battery compartment and pouring from it. Then let the unit dry in the sun, and store indoors. In my first season I did not correctly pour the water from the battery compartment, which led to my first battery corroding and failing. The manufacturer replaced the entire unit under warranty even tho this damage was clearly my error. In my defense I think the instuctions should explain this more clearly. Since they don't, I have done so here for you. Now that I empty the water from the battery compartment, I'm in my second season with the replacement unit and having no problems at all.

I found the manufacturer's customer service to be knowledgable, helpful, and concerned with making sure I was satisfied. As I mentioned, they replaced a unit that I had not maintained properly. You don't get that too often.

I'll never again be without one of these as long as I have a pool.

I received the Pool Buster vac today. Although, the battery wasn't fully charged, I tried it out anyway and it worked great. It picked up everything at the bottom of the pool, steps, and benches. It took me about 8-10 minutes to clean the whole pool compared to 1 ˝ hours before (connecting hoses, priming the pump, vacuuming, then cleaning the pool filter). The unit was smaller and lighter than I expected, which is an added benefit. The filter bag in the vac actually holds a lot of dirt and leaves and cleans out easily. I highly recommend it!

I have had a 16x32 in ground concrete pool for many years, during which I have tried many pool products. This product is one of my better purchases, though it does have limitations that I will discuss, which is why I gave it only four stars.

Opening my pool this year was a nightmare. The water was filled with algae (because I didn't use enough algaecide when I closed the pool), my diatamaceous earth filter required constant "bumping" of the handle to bring down the pressure (because I didn't clean it thoroughly enough when I closed the pool), and the diatamaceous earth itself was shooting back into the pool instead of coating the filter like it was supposed to (same failure to clean problem). To make matters worse, my Polaris 380 would not work, and I had just five days to get the pool looking nice and clean for a big family party. The Pool Buster Max saved the day for me.

I charged it for only four hours when I first bought it, and ignored the instruction in the manual that this was not intended for opening pools, but only for general maintenance. It was all I had to get my pool clean.

Fortunately I had virtually no leaves (more about that later), but most of the bottom of the pool was covered with a fine layer of dirt, dead algae, and diatamaceous earth (which is just as fine as sand). The Pool Buster attached easily to my pool pole, and I coated the on/off knob with a waterproof lubricant as per the suggestion from tech support at the company, who I called for suggestions. The suction was surprisingly good considering that the suction opening is only about the size of a half dollar; but that small size also caused it to often clog before the filter bag was filled. In the beginning, I was stopping and starting the Pool Buster about once a minute to unclog it, but remember that these were very adverse conditions, and the manual does say that this is not intended to open pools.

Working on and off for a couple of days because on top of everything else we had major rainstorms, I finally got the pool clean (it also helped that I fixed my filter and diatamaceous earth problems), and it looked great for the party.

My Polaris 380 still has not been fixed, so I have been using the Pool Buster for what it was intended to do--general maintenance. It works like a charm. Although the filter bag is small, it is more than adequate for general maintenance, during which the suction opening usually did not get clogged. I know that other filter bags are available, but I don't see the point in getting one since I used the filter bag that comes with the Pool Buster to successfully vacuum large amounts of fine dirt, dead algae, and diatamaceous earth. The Pool Buster is very easy to maneuver, and much easier to use than vacuum heads attached to a hose that connects to the skimmer. Also, all of the debris that is collected goes into a filter bag that is very easy to clean and empty, rather than into your skimmer and filter.

Unfortunately, this product does have a serious Achilles heel--it really cannot pick up even the smallest leaf. When I finally got my pool clean, I still had a couple of small leaves, which the Pool Buster either did not pick up, or got clogged from picking up just literally two small leaves. So for any general maintenance involving leaves, this product is worthless.

I still plan on fixing my Polaris 380, which is a workhorse compared to the Pool Buster (and costs much more), but will use the Pool Buster from time to time to do "touch up" maintenance because not even the Polaris gets everything, particularly debris on the pool steps, which the Pool Buster does a nice job on (note: I brush the debris from the top steps to the lower ones because I would have to take the Pool Buster out of the water to clean the two top steps on my pool).

Bottom line: This is not the perfect pool cleaner because it cannot handle leaves, and its suction opening should be a bit larger to avoid clogging. But it did save the day for me under much more adverse conditions than it was intended for, so I think it will be a nice addition to my collection of pool equipment. If you don't want to spend the money for a unit like a Polaris, and leaves are not an issue, then this unit will do a good job for you.

Note: I bought my unit at Costco for a little more than half of the list price. My local pool supplier was selling it for about two thirds of the list price. So shop around to find the best price in your area.

Update May 22, 2010: I stored the unit inside my house over the winter, and charged it once. When I opened my pool this week, it worked fine. Once again I had an algae problem. Vacuuming the dead algae with this unit takes longer than with a traditional vacuum head that connects to the skimmer, but using this unit lets me avoid transferring a lot of debris into my filter, and then having to clean that. I was glad to have it, especially since my Polaris 380 needs to be repaired despite working just fine at the end of last season.

I bought this last summer for our above ground pool. It worked really well until the gear got stripped for no apparent reason. We did get good customer service it just took most the summer to get the parts to fix it. Not sure what caused the problem as we were only sucking up pine needles and that sort of debride. When it was working, it did an outstanding job!

when ordering this I had my doubts about the suction strength. No doubts now. It is fantastic. It cleaned my small pool quickly. It works so much better than the hose vacuum set up that came with my pool. If you want a clean pool without spending lots of time vacumming this is a good choice.

I bought this unit against the advice of a pool store employee, but I am sure he would rather sell me one of the more expensive robotic units.

After charging it for 12 hours over night, I took it out in the pool this morning and was pleasantly surprised as I emptied basket after basket of grass clippings. At times it clogged, but on anything less than a pile of grass at the bottom of the pool it worked very well.

Much better than busting out all the hoses, and backwashing the filter once you are done - and you can use the fine silt filter to remove and sediment.

The only thing I am going to different next time is buy the commercial grade version!

I had my doubts but I read the reviews and decided to try the Pool Blaster Max. Arrived in about 32 days and tried next day after charging overnight. I was amazed at the effortless job it made out of vacuuming my 34x15 inground fiberglass pool.
I may never mess with my expensive "Dolphin" automatic pool cleaner again. I can do my whole pool start to finish and clean bag and put away in less than 15-20 minutes! Hint. Use the fine filter bags provided to get silt and "dust" off floor. Well worth the $175. Can do the pool at least twice between charges...maybe more. I just charge a few hours after 2nd use. Could not be any easier!