One way to grow your pool cleaning business is to recommend and sell various products to your customers. Over the course of my career, I've encountered tons of pool cleaning products and supplies. I thought I would pass on some of this first-hand knowledge to my fellow pool techs in the form of product reviews. Hopefully this will help get you started with expanding your business to include product sales.

I decided to start with the Baracuda G4. The Baracuda G4 is manufactured by Zodiac, a trusted name in the pool cleaning supply industry. It's an automatic pool cleaner that falls into the "suction" category, meaning it operates off of your pool's existing suction.   Should you recommend it to customers?   As far as ease-of-use is concerned, the Baracuda G4 will be a big hit with the average pool owner. I go into any product recommendation assuming that my client has pretty much no knowledge of or experience with pool cleaning. About 99% of the time that's true.

One major benefit for pool cleaning newbies is that the G4 requires virtually no assembly. The whole thing has only one moving part – the "Long-Life Diaphragm." You can have it up and running in just a couple of minutes. You don't need any tools, and there's no special type of plumbing to install.

Your clients will also like that the G4 is unobtrusive. Because there's no gears or wheels, it's a quiet cleaner. You can leave it in the pool all the time except when you're swimming. 

Other pros of the Baracuda G4:

• Less expensive than a robotic cleaner
• 2-year limited warranty
• Easy pool surface skimming with its Flowkeeper
• Automatically regulates water flow with its self-adjusting flow control valve
• Works for all types of debris: dirt, bugs, sand, sediment, pebbles, leaves and twigs

Problems with the Baracuda G4

The problems aren't so much unique to the G4 as they are common to all suction cleaners. In order to operate properly, the G4 requires a clean filter. Unfortunately, as with all suction cleaners, the debris sucked up by the G4 winds up in your filter. The upshot is that using the Baracuda G4 requires you to be more vigilant about keeping your filter clean. This can be a big annoyance if you have a nearby tree that's constantly dropping leaves in your pool.

Automatic pool cleaners have to navigate around ladders, steps, drains, lights and corners. So, pretty much any automatic pool cleaner is going to get stuck from time to time. The G4 features improved technology called a "Wheel Detector" to avoid this problem, but it can never be eliminated all together.

Also, there's always the possibility that the hose will become tangled or bent. Hoses, much like elephants, have a good memory. That is, once a hose is bent in a certain area, it will continue to bend in that area.

The verdict?

Overall, the Baracuda G4 gets the job done – and at a much more advanced level than most suction cleaners. Zodiac has really upped the ante with the technology the G4 features. It's simple to use, quiet and doesn't really have any parts to break. You do want to explain to your clients that all suction cleaners have a few cons, so they can decide if they would rather go robotic.

We work for ourselves, not Zodiac, so we have the luxury of presenting a balanced view. My rule of thumb? If you wouldn't recommend the product to your closest friend, don't recommend it to a client!