How to Get Leaves Out of Your Pool

Leaves falling in your pool is a fact of life – you can cover the pool up every night, but they’ll still find a way in. Our goal is to get rid of them with minimal fuss and effort.

What’s the best way to remove leaves from your pool? We’ve road-tested the options, so here’s how to keep your pool water clear and free of debris.

How to Get Leaves Out of a Pool

1. The Old-Fashioned Way

Using a rake or a net to remove leaves is still in fashion. What’s more, it’s sometimes the best method – if you’ve experienced a windfall of fresh leaves that are now floating on the water’s surface, sweeping can be more effective than suction.

Equally, fishing a few leaves out with a net takes 5 minutes and is good practice for daily maintenance. You can take care of this debris by hand and let a pool robot or automatic cleaner take care of the bottom.

If the bottom of the pool is clogged with leaves, this task becomes more difficult. Even sodden foliage has a habit of drifting out of the net as you lift it, which is annoying. However, it can be good for dealing with corners.

Our Verdict

This is a great strategy for daily removal and surface skimming. Heavy falls or sunken leaves will likely require the assistance of a manual vacuum or pool robot.

2. Use a Manual Vacuum

A powerful manual vacuum with a wide hose is an efficient way to deal with debris at the bottom of the pool. It means you don’t have to keep bending down and dragging a net up through the water – it starts feeling very heavy after a while!

Manual vacuums can cover the floor quickly and thoroughly, and there’s less risk of bits drifting off as they go straight up the hose. Meanwhile, floating debris can still easily be removed using a net.

For information on how to vacuum a pool manually, read our how-to guide here.

Our Verdict

Manual vacuums offer a wallet-friendly way to remove debris from the bottom of the pool. They’re easy-to-use, put less strain on your back, and pick up the dirt a rake cannot.

3. Invest in a Pool Robot

If you’ve fished out any floating debris and there are still a few leaves at the bottom, a pool robot is an effective way to vacuum them up with almost no effort. These hands-free devices get to work at a click of a button, requiring minimal human intervention.

Some may even be programmed to start working at a certain time of day. And, because they use their own filters, you won’t have to worry about burning out your pool’s filtration system.

Our Verdict

If you’re looking for ultimate convenience and functionality, a pool robot is the way to go. Pair this with the old-fashioned method, and you’ve got a cost-effective way to keep your pool clean.

What’s the Best Way to Remove Leaves From Your Pool?

All these methods have advantages – it depends on how the water is looking. There are many advantages to having a pool robot around for regular cleaning. We’d also never recommend chucking out your rake or net – these are always useful for skimming leaves from the surface! However, both methods have their limits when it comes to larger loads.

Removing Sunken Leaves from a Pool

A high-quality pool vacuum is the fastest way to clear out sunken leaves. It also saves on effort. Some top-quality suction cleaners can run around the floor and achieve full coverage without you needing to lean in as you would with a traditional, handheld vacuum pole.

There are limits, of course. If you’ve gone away on vacation in Fall and come back to discover piles of leaves in the corners of your pool, you’ll have to do some removal by hand. Even the best suction hoses can get blocked. After lifting out large clogs, a robotic pool vacuum will do the rest.

Removing Floating Leaves from Your Pool

The cheapest and easiest way to remove floating leaves from a pool is to fish them out with a rake or net. If the floor is almost clear once you’ve taken care of floating debris, you can run a robotic or suction cleaner around to take care of the rest. Regular maintenance helps prevent large build-ups.

Summary

You should keep your hand tools around and remove debris as often as you can to prevent piles from forming. Still, a good suction cleaner is essential if your pool experiences a high volume of falling leaves.\