A Brief History of Pool Cleaners
by Richard K. Cacioppo, J.D.     
Director of Marketing Water Tech, LLC

     Not even a brief history of the swimming pool cleaner can be told without some prospective about the history of not only swimming pools, but swimming in itself. 

The First Swimmers

     Recreational swimming is not quite as old as civilization itself, but not by much.  The earliest civilizations began almost simultaneously over 6500 years ago in today’s China, Iraq, India and Egypt. Drawings from the Stone Age were found in "the cave of swimmers" in the southwestern part of Egypt near Libya, capturing the technique of the breaststroke and dog paddle. Others references to swimming were found in Babylonian bas-reliefs and Assyrian wall drawings, depicting a variant of the breaststroke. The most famous drawings were found in the Kebir desert and are estimated to be from around 4000 B.C. The Nagoda bas-relief also shows swimmers dating back from 3000 B.C. An Egyptian tomb from 2000 B.C. shows a variant of the front crawl. Depictions of swimmers were also found from the Hittites, Minoans, and other Middle Eastern civilizations, the Maya in the Tepantitla House at Teotihuacan, and in mosaics in Pompeii.

     The Greeks did not include swimming in the ancient Olympic Games but practiced the sport, often building swimming pools as part of their baths. One common insult in Greece was to say about somebody that he/she “neither knew how to run nor swim”. The Etruscans at Tarquinia (Italians) show pictures of swimmers in 600 B.C., and tombs in Greece depict swimmers 500 B.C. A series of relics from 850 B.C. in the Nimrud Gallery of the British Museum show swimmers, mostly in military context, often using swimming aids.

    In Japan, swimming was one of the noble skills of the Samurai and historic records describe swimming competitions in 36 B.C. organized by emperor Suigui, which are among the first known swimming races.

     Swimming was initially one of the seven agilities of knights during the Middle Ages, including swimming with armour. However, as swimming was done in a state of undress, it became less popular as society became more conservative and it was opposed by the church at the end of the Middle Ages. For example, in the 16th century, a German court document in the Vechta prohibited the naked public swimming of children. Leonardo da Vinci made early sketches of lifebelts.

     In 1538 Nicolas Wynman, German professor of languages, wrote the first swimming book Colymbetes. Around the same time, E. Digby in England also wrote a swimming book, claiming that humans can swim better than fish.

     In 1696, the French author Melchisédech Thévenot  wrote The Art of Swimming, describing a breaststroke very similar to the modern breaststroke. This book was translated into English and became the standard reference of swimming for many years to come, and was read by Benjamin Franklin.

     Predating actual swimming pools, early European-Americans were inspired by the rituals of many Native Americans of digging holes in the ground and heating the water, as a form of hot water therapy.

     The first German swimming club was founded in 1837 in Berlin and a major swimming competition was held in 1884 in London that included some Native Americans.

The Earliest Swimming Pools

     History may have lost the date of the first swimming pool, but what is known is that the Indian palace Mohenjo Daro from 2800 B.C contains a swimming pool sized 30m by 60m. The Minoan palace Minos of Knossos in Crete also featured baths. The first heated swimming pool was built by Gaius Maecenas of Rome in the first century BC. Gaius Maecenas was a rich Roman lord and considered one of the first patron of arts - he supported the famous poets Horace, Virgil, and Propertius, making it possible for them to live and write without fear of poverty.

     The first indoor swimming pool was built in England in 1862. An Amateur Swimming Association of Great Britain was organized in 1880 with more than 300 members.

     In 1879 King Ludwig II of Bavaria built a swimming pool in castle Linderhof. This is believed to be the first artificial wave pool and also featured electrically heated water and light.

     However, swimming pools did not become popular until the middle of the 19th century. By 1837, six indoor pools with diving boards were built in London, England. After the modern Olympic Games began in 1896 and swimming races were among the original events, the popularity of swimming pools began to spread –

     Also lost is the date of the first American residential swimming pool, but it is almost certain that there was no formal date or pool.  Most probably is that early residents first dug watering holes outside their property, then on their property, and eventually strengthened the floors and sides with either wood, brick or some early form of concrete.

     The first known commercial swimming pool is believed to have been built in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1887. Within a few years as the manufacturing of steel was refined and made far more readily available than ever before, contractors began to combine it with concrete and cement to form the early versions of today’s Gunite swimming pools.

     It no wonder that a member of  the so-called Building Vanderbilts family, had one of the first significant residential swimming pools built in what still, 110 years later is the largest American residence, the Biltmore, located in rural Asheville, North Carolina. George Vanderbilt, youngest grandson of the legendary Commodore Vanderbilt at the ripe old age of but 26 years out-did his older siblings and cousins and their famous Newport cottages. The Biltmore boasts 4 acres of floor space, the 250-room mansion featured 34 master bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, 3 kitchens, and an indoor swimming pool. Priceless art works and furnishings adorned its interiors. The surrounding grounds were equally impressive, encompassing 125,000 acres of forest, park, and gardens.   This was a most fitting place to start the American residential swimming pool industry.  By the early 1920’s about twenty pools a year were being built in Southern California.  Today, according to PKdata, the Georgia company commissioned by the former NSPI and now APSP estimates that there are close to nine million pools, spas and hot tubs standing.

And Then Came The Pool Cleaner

     It’s amazing that even today with the millions of pools, spas and hot tubs in place, that perhaps the majority of pool owners still clean their pools, the old fashioned way … skimming the surface with a net, brushing and vacuuming by connecting a long hose to main pool filtering system.  Yet, slowly, but surely powered swimming pool cleaners are getting more and more popular.  A recent survey by Water Tech, inventor of the Pool Buster battery-powered pool cleaner came up with no less than 150 different brands and models.

     Like pools themselves, there almost certainly was not a single inventor nor a single powered pool cleaner that has been recorded in history as the first such machine. It is believed that as early as 1927 one inventive Southern Californian, whose name may have been long ago forgotten, came up with a spidery device he called "an automatic pool cleaner.” 

     A search of the United States Patent and Trademark Office disclosed that today’s powerized swimming pool cleaners evolved slowly from the combinations of a variety of other machines … pumps, motors, rotating brush devices.  In 1958 Andrew Pansini recorded one of the first patents just for a motorized pool cleaner.  Ironically an Andrew Pansini, perhaps the very same Andrew Pansini, has received a patent on another motorized pool cleaner as recently as two years ago.

     Beginning with the Arneson Pool Sweep, invented several decades ago by Howard Arneson, the robotic pool cleaner has had a relatively slow metamorphosis. Improvement of the suction-side units has been limited by its simplistic design. Although somewhat more complicated, pressure-side units remain relatively similar to those developed years ago.

     One of the first “fully-automatic” pool cleaners was the Aqua Queen, built and marketed by Aqua Vac Pool Systems of Florida. The Aqua Queen was to the pool industry what the Univac was to the computer industry—big and heavy, complicated, and very elementary in a growing industry. The next generation of independent robotic cleaners was the Dolphin, manufactured and first sold in Israel. The Dolphin was able to clean up debris as small as 80 microns, micron 1 millionth of a meter a length, and had the ability to climb pool walls. Invented in South Africa and manufactured on a kibbutz in Israel by Maytronics, Inc. the Dolphin remains one of the more popular robotic pool cleaners.

     While the privately-held Polaris Pool Systems closely guards virtually everything about its products, it almost undoubtedly did more to popularize the so-called automatic pool cleaner than any other company in the last third of the 20^th century.  The Kreepy Krauly, early versions of the Baracuda and one of the most famous of all, the Jandy Ray-Vac all helped build the industry.

      In 1983, Aqua Products entered the market with more technological advancements. The company launched its Aquabot residential micro-filter (allegedly 2 micron filtering ability) cleaner and the Aquamax series of commercial pool cleaners after considering the market and liabilities of the competition. It followed with other innovations, remote controlled cleaners and huge commercial monstrosities costing upwards of $6,000. One of their inventive ideas that never quite took hold was the Aquabot Bravo Lumina, which feature a neon light in the handle. It would not shock anyone who knew the chief designer and president of Aqua Products, Gerry Erlich, if a talking unit is on the drawing board.

     Not so ironically, Gerry’s oldest son, Guy, who literally grew up in the pool industry, evolved as Aqua Products’ Vice President of Sales and Marketing leading it into the 21^st century as the leader in robotic cleaners and also credited as the brainchild toward the next advancement. In 2001 Water Tech was born to market Erlich’s revolutionary Pool Buster, the first successful battery-powered pool cleaner. Heretofore, there were three major accepted technologies within the power pool cleaner market, 1.) Suction side cleaners that work off the pool’s skimmer or a dedicated suction line, 2.) Pressure-side cleaners which usually work off a separate booster pump and/or the pool’s return line, and robotic cleaners that are totally independent of the main pool filter system and run on electricity, often using step-down transformers. (A fourth, central vacuuming or pop-up head systems are built into the pool, impractical for existing pools without the system).

    The Pool Buster adds a new category, which it has all to itself, a powerized, totally independent manually-operated one. Running on a rechargeable, onboard battery, the Pool Buster is the only powerized pool cleaner that works without hoses, power cords or booster pumps. Water Tech also introduced and  manufacturers the top end Blue Diamond line of ultimate or luxury  pool cleaners, a sub-category of robotics.

     The swimming pool industry is growing by leaps and bounds.  Backyard kiddie or wading pools have long been almost a staple of American suburbia, and today are produced in the millions annually. According to the United States Department of Commerce, over $6 million worth of these were imported into the country last year, while hundreds of thousands of them are almost certainly produced domestically.  They now have a big brother, the large inflatable portable pool, made in and imported from China by Intex Recreational Products, Aqua Leisure Industries and Best Way.  Many consider these a real threat to above ground pool manufacturers with costs for these new pools as little as 1/10th that of the traditional variety.  To make matters worse these blow up and other quick and easy set-up pools are being sold by America’s retail giants, such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart, Costco and HomeDepot.

     To clean these pools, companies like G.A.M.E., Polaris and Grit Gitter offer hand operated wands to go along with the myriad of garden hose attached devices.

     The swimming pool cleaner is expected to grow exponentially in popularity to the swimming pool itself, especially with the fact that many Americans, weary of the risks of terrorism are staying home and spending what would have been their travel money on improving their home environments. The barbeque grill, designer outdoor furniture, all surrounding the esthetically pleasing swimming pool all are embracing what is fondly referred to as the backyard vacation.   And who on vacation wants to work?   For sure, the powerized pool cleaner has a healthy future.

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