Best Tools for Pool Dirt Cleanup

Dust doesn’t just cloud water; it wrecks schedules, clogs filters, and turns simple visits into expensive marathons. We break down three battle-tested ways to remove heavy dirt loads without touching the customer’s equipment, so you protect pumps, save water, and finish faster. 

First, we put the Advantage Portivac 2.0 under the microscope. With a 1.5 HP pump and a 150 sq ft cartridge, this cart lets you vacuum to waste or safely recirculate back into the pool, keeping thousands of gallons on site across a season. It even doubles as temporary circulation when a pad is down. We outline real-world pros like strong, steady suction and huge dirt capacity, along with limits in leaf-heavy mixes and the light setup time you should plan for.

Next, we turn a leaf-focused vacuum system into a dust killer. The Bottom Feeder or Shrimp now supports a cartridge assembly that filters down to 20 microns. Start at 50 sq ft for about two pounds of dirt, or stack to 100 sq ft to tackle dust-storm loads over four pounds. The threaded mount makes swapping from cartridge to bag fast, so crews can move from silt to leaves without breaking stride. American-made Unicel media brings durability and predictable performance shift after shift.

Finally, meet the Vac Daddy with its vacuum-to-waste adapter, a compact setup that punches above its weight. Connect your discharge hose, set it on the deck, and move fine dirt out of the pool at remarkable speed without running through a filter. It runs corded or on a battery pack for tough access jobs, and while it’s not built for huge leaf piles, it shines for dust with minimal gear and maximum agility.

Choose Portivac for high-capacity recirculation and backup circulation, pick the Bottom Feeder cartridge kit to add true dust capture to your vacuum workflow, or deploy the Vac Daddy adapter when fast vac-to-waste is your edge. Prefer a discount? Call Advantage Manufacturing and mention David Van Brunt. If you want more practical tactics and support, subscribe, share the show with a fellow pro, and leave a review to help others find it.

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Transcript

Dirt-Heavy Pools Problem Framed

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Hey, welcome to the Pool Game Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm gonna go over dirt cleanup with a pool that has a lot of dirt. If you're in an area where you get monsoons or a lot of dust like the high desert, I'm gonna go over some tools that you can use that really help clean up the dirt without using the customer's pool filtration system, of course. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support. From me, I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. There are a lot of situations out there where you can't vacuum a pool to waste. You may have a cartridge filter or a D filter or even a sand filter without a multi-port valve with the vacuum to waste. And in that same vein, even vacuuming to waste could be a problem. Sometimes the pool equipment can't handle it as well, and sometimes you'll clog up the pump and the equipment. So it's always good to have something that's separate from the customer's equipment pad. And again, sometimes you're handicapped because you don't have any access or any way to use their equipment to vacuum to waste. So there are three products that I use and I recommend to pick up dirt in a pool. And these products are really good at what they do, they all are a little different, and they all have their advantages as well. Let me start with the Advantage Portivac 2.0. Now, this is basically a pump and filter on wheels, and this particular product is very robust in cleaning pools that have a lot of dirt and dust. Also, since it has a cartridge filter and the ability to recycle the water back into the pool, you don't have to always vacuum to waste with the Port of Vac 2.0. You can actually vacuum, have all the dirt go into the filter. It has a 150 square foot cartridge filter, a 1.5 horsepower pump on front, and you don't really need to vacuum the waste. In some cases, you can just have the water go back into the pool, and it saves on waste of water as well. It's also something that's really good if you need to have a portable system to run the pool. A lot of times the pool will go down, the pump won't work, and there may be a need to circulate the water and run it. So you can actually leave the portavac there and you can have it circulate the pool for you. So it has a dual purpose there. And it's a very robust machine that you can use to circumvent using the customer's equipment to vacuum out really dirty pools. A lot of pool pros in the high desert like having a portable pump and filter to bring back there and vacuum the pool, either to waste or to recirculate the water back into the pool. So some of the advantages of the Portavac 2.0 is that you have strong, consistent suction because it has a powerful 1.5 horsepower pump on the front, has 150 square foot cartridge filter, so it takes a while for that cartridge to actually get filled up with dirt for sure. And it's great because you're using the vacuum head and you're vacuuming the pool just as if you were vacuuming with you know a the customer's equipment. The some of the drawbacks are that you're using a manual vacuum head, so if there's a lot of debris in the pool, you can potentially clog up the pump, and it could also clog the vacuum head. So it's not really designed for those pools with a lot of leaf debris and dirt in combination with each other. It's mainly designed for pools that get a lot of dirt in them. And a lot of pool pros like having their employees have these because then they can vacuum the pool without worrying about again the customer's filtration system. You also have to bring it on the back of your truck with a hitch, and it does take a little bit of time to set up, it's not a deal breaker by any stretch. You just have to plug it in, prime the pump, and then connect your vacuum hose. And essentially that takes about two or three minutes. So it's not something that consumes a lot of time setting up either. So it's a very robust machine to get dirt out of the pool. And so if you're looking for something that is powerful with a large filtration capacity, easy to use, and something that you can give to employees to use, they can either vacuum to recirculate it back into the pool or you can vacuum the waste. This is definitely something to look into. If you call Advantage Manufacturing and mention my name, David Van Brunt, they'll actually give you a discount on the system itself, and you can order it directly from them. You know, call advantaged manufacturing.com and they'll get it out to you. And I think it's a great product for cleanups, for pools where you need to have a second secondary equipment for let's say something went down and you need to circulate the pool. It's a really great product for that, and it's something that's well made and robust and great for dirt pool cleanups. Next up would be the bottom feeder or shrimp with their new cartridge filter assembly. This is an interesting device that kind of takes the bottom feeder and shrimp to the next level. It's a 50 square foot cartridge filter that you can get to put on top of the cleaner, and then essentially it'll vacuum up dirt down to 20 microns, and it can hold my testing, and guys in the field have tested it to the maximum capacity, about two pounds of dirt. If you're cleaning a pool with more than that, there's a new extension kit that actually converts the cartridge filter assembly to a hundred square foot cartridge. The extension kit comes with longer rods and another cartridge filter, and basically you stack it on top of you stack the filters on top of each other to create a hundred square foot filtration area, which means you can capture over four pounds of dirt and in most situations, which typically will clean most pools that were hit by a dust storm. And with the extra cartridge on top, it's actually not very awkward at all, and it does a great job with those heavy cleanups. The standard assembly kit again is a 50 square foot cartridge, and it's basically like vacuuming a pool with a cartridge filter on top of your vacuum. The bottom feeder has a six-inch opening, so it's great for leaf debris as well. And the cartridge does hold a pretty good capacity of leaf debris, just everything in the center or the core of the cartridge will hold the leaf debris. And if you need a larger extension, you would double stack it. You can also buy the bottom feeder and shrimp with the cartridge assembly on top. If you go to their site, you can there's two different purchasing options. If you have a bottom feeder and shrimp already, you can buy the cartridge assembly that goes on top separately, or you can buy the bottom feeder and shrimp with the cartridge assembly. If you don't have either of those, it's definitely something to look into, and it's something that is going to make the bottom feeder really a very versatile cleaner. Because as you know, vacuum systems are typically made just for leaf debris and the finer dirt go right through the bags, and these are not ideal for cleaning up pools with a lot of dirt. But now with the cartridge assembly and also the extension kit, this is a perfect way to clean up pools with dirt, and again it traps all the dirt inside the cartridge down to 20 microns, and it's really easy to maneuver and push in the pool. Another great aspect is that it has a patent pending design where it actually threads onto the cleaner. This makes it really easy to put the cartridge on and go from cartridge to bag very quickly. So if you wanted the vacuum to pull with dirt, you can screw the cartridge on. If you wanted to get leaf debris, you would just unscrew it and use the bag on top. So the versatility is definitely something to consider. I should have mentioned that the Portavac is made in America and the bottom feeder filter assembly kit is also made in America. The Unicell cartridge is an American-made product. They actually make it not too far from where I live in Los Angeles area. And Unicell, of course, uses Remake material, so they have a robust cartridge for that. The nice thing about the advantage port of acc is that you can change out that cartridge and you can get a pleat coat cartridge or whatever bread you want. And that cartridge also is a 150 square foot capacity cartridge, the Port of Ac, and you can get whichever cartridge you want. But the bottom feeder filter assembly kit comes with a Unicell cartridge filter with a remake, which is really a great cartridge material, by the way. It's really not a bad idea to purchase this for that cleaner. Switching gears entirely, you have the Vac Daddy with the vacuum to waste adapter. The Vac Daddy kind of is a cleaner that fits no category in my opinion. It really is not a vacuum system. It's also not a kind of compact or I guess low-powered cleaner, like the uh WaterTech, the smaller water tech cleaners with bags in it. Now the fact that he does have a bag in there, very similar to maybe their prof their professional level uh precision uh 10 version, but it it really has tremendous power. It it pumps about 55 or 60 gallons per minute, so it's very comparable to a portable pump that's on the deck of your pool in power capacity, and it connects to the pool pool. So a lot of guys like the fact that you can actually use it to do manual vacuuming of the pool without having to bring your manual vacuum back there. They again there are bags, debris bags that go inside the Vac Daddy, and the capacity isn't quite as robust as a vacuum system, but the convenience factor definitely is there, and you could plug it in at the customer into a socket, has a 50-foot cord, or you can use their new battery pack to plug it in. But I think where the Vac Daddy really excels is the vacuum to waste adapter. When you put this thing on the back of the Vac Daddy and connect the pool hose, the vacuum to waste, it's really an incredible amount of power that comes out of the Vac Daddy. It's actually a shocking amount of power. You won't believe it until you see it with your own eyes. So basically, you connect the Vac Daddy, you actually connect the vacuum to waste to the back of the Vac Daddy, and then you connect the Vac Daddy to your pole, plug it in, and just connect the pool hose to the vacuum the waste adapter, I should say. Put it somewhere on your deck, and then you can vacuum out the pool very rapidly with the Vac Daddy vacuum the waste. So it's almost I can't really say it's like the advantage port of vac because there's no filter, but at the same time, you're generating a lot of power and you're able to vacuum the pool in a similar way to having a portable filtration system on the deck itself with your pool hoops connected to it. So it's really something that's unique in the industry. And if you do a lot of vacuuming the waste into your pool route, the vac daddy is great for that. I think it's essentially best for this purpose. And I always say they should have came out with the vacuum of the waste immediately when they came out with the product, it would have really taken off, more so than using it as a kind of weekly vacuum system. The vacuum pools out, the vacuum the waste just works so well. You'll put a special bag in there that will collect the leaf debris and let all the dirt through. And again, the power of the Vac Daddy vacuum the waste can't be matched by anything out there on the market, it's just extremely powerful and effective. And so, if you do do a lot of cleanups, you know, there's a lot of choices out there, and the Vac Daddy vacuum the waste would be a viable choice, and it's also a tool you can use to vacuum the pool weekly as well with the regular debris bag in there. I think the way to look at it is that you do have options out there depending on your business model and what you need these products for. For instance, the Portivac 2.0 is great again for cleanups for you know employees that you want to vacuum the pool and you don't want to use the customer's system, especially in those areas where a lot of dirt gets in the pools and you have to vacuum on a weekly basis. You really don't want to be filling up the customer's filter because then you're cleaning the filter more often. It costs the customer a lot more money for filter cleanings if you do them every two months, and it's something that is available to you out there to kind of circumvent. I would say the the Venice Portavac 2.0 basically circumvents the customer's equipment pad, and you're just using that as their equipment pad at each stop. And of course, it's something that is very versatile and very reliable and robust because out of compared to all these, the bottom feeder with the cartridge assembly and the VAC Daddy, it does have the most power with a 1.5 horsepower pump and motor and the 150 square foot cartridge filter, the bottom feeder and shrimp cartridge filter assembly. It's great if you use a vacuum system on a regular basis to get leaf debris and you want something that's going to also get the dirt on occasion, or if you're an area with a lot of dirt and you don't have a vacuum system because you think that they're not really useful, because you know, hey, they just pick up leaf debris, they'll pick up dirt. Now you have the option to get the bottom feeder and shrimp with the cartridge filter assembly in those areas where primarily you wouldn't use it because you're mainly focused on dirt cleanup and not leaf debris cleanup. So that gives you another option there to have a vacuum system, and it also gives you an option to have a vacuum system that picks up dirt at the same time. So great option, also, and I would recommend that for anyone who has the bottom fiend shrimp already. I would just recommend ordering the cartridge assembly so that you take the bottom fiend shrimp to the next level. And as far as the Vac Daddy goes, it's a great option if you have employees and you don't want them messing with the pool's equipment, then you want them to vacuum the pool. It's great for that on a weekly basis, but it really excels at the vacuum the waste with the adapter on the back. It just becomes a really compact, I should say, cleanup pump where you can use it to vacuum out all the dirt in the pool. And basically, it it takes the um the advantage Portervac 2.0 and converts it down to a device that goes on to the pool pool and you can use it to vacuum the pool. Again, all of these have their strengths. All of these are devices that I use to clean up pools with a lot of dirt, and you just have to pick the right one for your business model. And again, there's options out there, and I really like the fact that you have more than one option for dirt cleanup, and you would pick the best option based on analyzing these products, and of course, reviewing all the reviews and the needs for them and the versatility of each product is different. And I would say, you know, think long and hard on each purchase because they're all a little bit different, they all have their advantages and disadvantages, and whichever one you decide to get, all of them are effective in removing dirt from a pool. And it's one of those things where again, choose the product that best fits your business model and business plan. If you're looking for other podcasts, you can find those on my website, swimmingprolearning.com. If you go there on the banner, there's a podcast icon, there'll be a drop-down menu of over 1800 podcasts for you there. And if you're interested in the coaching program that I offer, you can learn more at PoolGuyCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have you rest of your week and God bless.