Wayne WAPC250 1/4 HP Automatic Pool Cover Pump - Blue | Flexzilla HFZG525YW 5/8" x 25ft Heavy Duty Garden Hose - Perfect for Pool Maintenance & Yard Watering

I purchased this 2 times. Both times the box and the description on line indicated that it came with a check valve that would connect to a standard garden hose. This was not the case! The first time the check valve was not in the box, so i returned it to Amazon. The second time it came with a hose connector that is a standard filter hose size not a garden hose connector. After receiving the second box i called Wayne customer service and having explained the issue the service rep was extremely kind and sent the correct valve and connector. I cant say enough about the way they serve their customers. As far as the review of the product it self, it was pretty easy setup. Only take the unit out of the box install the check valve assembly to the unit no tools needed, and lastly attach the base to the pump unit . You cant mess up this last step as there is slots that fit only one way. When assembled put the pump on the pool cover and plug it in. It is automatic and works as described. Customer service when i talked to them advised me to remove the unit when the temp gets down to the low 40s at the latest when the temp is 36-7 degrees F . She said even though it says it has freeze protection it can be damaged if water is in the unit and it freezes. The pump is very powerful and cleared the water off a 24 foot pool cover in less that 20 minutes. My previous pump took hours and I'm glad it failed so that i could have an excuse to buy this one.Edit - 3/4/2019:Three years in to life with this pump and I'm still very happy with it. I still have it configured with a 1-1/4" sump pump discharge line instead of a garden hose. I've had to take it apart and clean out the weep hole only a few times that I can recall, and I tend to get lots of dirt and tree debris on the cover. After three years of life with this pump, I'm glad to change my review from four stars to five. It's a solid product from a good company.I originally posted a one-star review for this item. I’m changing that to four stars not only because the manufacturer took great care of me, but because this pump is great at moving a lot of water very quickly if you set it up right. This is a lengthy review, but hopefully worth the trouble of reading if you are like me and appreciate hearing the details.The pump is available in two versions, WAPC250 and WAPC250G, with the difference being power cord. The former has a standard three-prong plug and the latter has a large, integrated GFCI plug. Even though I ordered the plain-plug model, what I received was the GFCI protected version along with a note that the manufacturer had “upgraded” my pump with the GFCI version.The power supply to my yard and pool is compliant with current NEC codes. That is, the entire circuit is protected against ground fault (a GFCI circuit breaker in the main panel in my house), and all my outdoor electrical outlets are installed with while-in-use covers (the big, boxy covers which provide weatherproofing even while something is plugged in). My original one-star review was based on the fact that the GFCI plug on the pump I received is enormous. Not only was it simply too big to fit inside my in-use outlet covers (see photo accompanying my review), it was incompatible with any other in-use box design I found on the shelf at three different home centers.I was really mad when I called Wayne Company’s customer service line. But to their credit, they took great care of me. My goal was to be told that I could simply cut the GFCI unit off the cord and replace it with a regular plug without voiding my (three year!) warranty. Instead, they sent me another pump with the appropriate plug at their expense. The representative seemed genuinely surprised when I told her the GFCI plug wouldn’t fit inside any cover I could find at the store. The lesson for a prospective purchaser: If you have the old-style outlet covers (a flap-style which is only weatherproof when nothing is plugged in), will be able to plug in either model. If you have GFCI protection elsewhere in the circuit you’re using to power the pump, either another GFCI outlet upstream or a GFCI breaker in the house, then the GFCI plug on the pump is redundant and you can get away with the standard plug. Lastly on a personal note: If you still have the old style weatherproof covers around your pool you really should upgrade them to NEC compliant in-use covers. The old style flaps provide no weather protection at all while things are plugged in to them; we all know the problems which can arise when you incorrectly mix water and electricity.As for the pump’s performance, I am very impressed. I noted reviews here critical of the weep-hole maintenance, but this necessity is clearly called out in the owner’s manual for my pump (a simple procedure). Also, the garden-hose connection port is really a check-valve, which means it has a clearly marked top and bottom. The check valve must be installed by the purchaser, and it’s very important to have the top oriented correctly. I believe failure to accomplish this will lead to many of the pumping problems described in other reviews. Finally, this pump appears to be a sump pump sitting on a modified base. It’s true the water needs to get a couple inches deep before it kicks on, but it doesn’t seem to leave any more water on the cover after a cycle than the Rule pumps I’ve begrudgingly used for years.Finally, there is another review here which includes a video of the pump in action. I copied their idea of replacing the included check valve (1-1/4” NPT to garden hose adapter) with a check valve which allows connection of a sump pump discharge line (1-1/4” NPT to 1-1/4” hose barb). The replacement check valve and 24’ discharge line were readily available on the shelf of my local home center (near the sump pumps), and the total cost was around $11. Make sure you buy a check valve and not a simple adapter! This simple upgrade has big benefits. First, it allows the pump to move a LOT of water VERY quickly, and it takes much less work to do it. This translates to longer pump life and probably lower power consumption overall.I am very pleased with the performance! The only outstanding question in my mind is longevity. If it really does last three years without significant issue then my review will likely become five stars. A great product supplied by a solid company.When it comes to a pool cover pump you must consider the following factors:1) Does it pump enough water to get the job done in a matter of a couple of hours?2) Is it easy to clean after it got the water off the pool cover?3) Does it shut off automatically to protect itself when there is no more water?4) Will I end up with a pump that will jeopardize the marriage because it is a pain to operate and the wife keeps giving me hourly “friendly” reminders to go put the pump on the pool? (This may just be me)I had a similar pump to this one for 8 years from another manufacturer that is now discontinued and I was looking for a worthy replacement because I left it on the pull submerged a couple of times and was in a block of ice for the past 2 winters. It survived the 1st one but could not survive the second one so I bought this pump to replace it. This pump looks similar to the one I had but to my surprise it is much better. Recently we had a lot of rain so I put it to work while the pool cover had about 2 feet of water and it took only 2.5 hours to pump it all out. The whole thing was ready to put to work in a matter of minutes out of the box. The water outlet has a threaded end that matches the standard type of garden hose and all you have to do to get it ready is to screw the outlet pipe on the pump by hand and a garden hose on the outlet pipe also by hand. Then just clip the strainer (bottom plate that filters leafs and other debris) on it, find a GFCI outlet and you are in business.Most importantly, the old pump had 3 screws that I had to take off in order to clean the strainer and I found myself walking around with the screw gun every time I needed to put it to work. This pump has a plastic clip that holds the bottom plate to it and it can be taken apart by just applying light pressure with my thumb. Yet, when it is on the pump, it does not seem to be able to come off by itself so I am very happy about that.So to answer the above questions,1) It pumps plenty of water out and will clear the water of your pool cover very fast compared to other inexpensive pumps.2) Very easy to take apart and clean it in seconds.3) It has an electronic sensor that will start the pump when the pump is submerged deep enough to be able to pump water out and turn it off when there is no more water. If you do not live in cold climate and there is no worry about the pump freezing, you can just plug it in and leave it on your pool cover.***Note: The reason I gave it 4 stars is because this pump does not have a GFCI plug like some other pumps do and you should always plug it in a GFCI protected outlet (this is also noted in the manual). If you do not know what a GFCI outlet looks like check your kitchen outlets. Some of them, if not all, should have 2 buttons on them marked as “Test” and “Reset”. This is the type of outlet you need to plug this pump in. Note that it is possible that your outside outlet is not a GFCI outlet but is connected to a GFCI breaker in the electrical panel. GFCI breakers have a button on them that says “Test” (usually white or yellow) and if you press it the breaker will trip. Also a normal looking outlet can be connected to another outlet that is GFCI and it is protected by that other outlet. If you are not 100% sure if your outlet is protected by a GFCI, you should have an electrician check and replace the outlet you will be using for this pump with a GFCI outlet. You could also cut the plug of the pump and replace it with a GFCI plug like this one (We tarp our pool in the fall, and of course every spring there's a tonne of water in the tarp, along with any leaves and debris from previous year's fall.This pump has worked great to pump the water out, despite the debris. We use it with the pool cover. And after something that sludgy, I take the blue cover off, knock the debris off, and use a brush and brush out the holes on the pump itself. But just that once for the rest of the year.It has one quirk. There sometimes is an air bubble that gets trapped in the pump. The pump will pulse and try to go, even if it's in enough water for it to pump. So it needs to be tilted at almost 45 degrees for the air to "blub" out, and it has to be tilted to a particular side. Once the air bubble is released, it can create the suction it needs to draw water and will run continually.We have had this completely surrounded in leaves, and needles, and those little tiny pine buds, and the water is sludgy from plant matter, insects, etc. The pump has kept going. I haven't noticed it stop yet, only when there wasn't enough water (because all the debris around it created a dam and wouldn't let water get to the pump fast enough). We leave the blue cover on though, and I think that helps.Use a regular hard wall garden hose. Don't use those rubbery sleeved extending ones that get longer. They will not extend, and they severely limit the amount of water the pump will move.The pump itself feels kind of slow, but we probably have about 5000 - 7500 litres of snow water we need to clear out of the tarp in spring, so it does take a few hours.Throughout the summer, with the pool cover in use, it works well, but this is where that quirk comes into play. The pool cover is more taught that the tarp, so the pump doesn't sink much to create a body of water that it can submerge into. It does detect that it's in water, and tries to pump, pulsing now and then, but we usually need to tilt it to work that air bubble that gets trapped inside (probably because we toss the pump more into the centre of the cover). It probably will eventually go and work the air out by itself, but I feel like it's just going to wear itself out if I let it do that.Anyways, it's going well. Hopefully I haven't jinxed it.Purchased in Apr 2018. Stopped working all together May 2019, after a total of about 6 months occasional use.There can't be this much drama just to put a pump in some water and expect it to work. Its amazing how its finickiness and unreliability, according to Wayne help inquiries, is always all my fault. I didn't put in into the water right. I didn't disassemble and carefully clean it before every single use right. I didn't gently tap on the housing right. Wayne seems to believe that water accumulating on a pool cover should be crystal clean or their dainty little pump just won't work... Whatever.Had quite a lot of water sitting on top of the pool cover (in fact I had to wait to open the pool until the tadpoles! had left their sheltered birth place). With the recent wind there were lots of leaves and other rotten material on top of the pool cover. The pump handled it all (by filtering the leaves and other materials) and the (very dirty) water was all pumped off the cover in no time. I have had other pumps in the past that were not able to handle it. This one did. So far, I am very happy with this purchase.I bought this in February 2016 and it was a great pump for several weeks of rainy, wet weather. As other reviews have noted, it does occassionally get clogged up with little needles which affect the automatic on/off switch. The video on the Youtube that has been posted by Wayne Pumps is easy to follow and works perfectly. Make sure you install the backflow valve so that the flap aligns properly to close downward. I made a small mark on the outside of the valve to make this easier. My pump stopped working after about 6 weeks. I contacted Wayne Pumps via their website and was worried when the only reply I got several days later was "call us" - however, when I called, they were helpful. Being in Canada, I did have to send the pump to them in the US which cost me ~$20. However, they replaced the pump very quickly inlcuding overnight shipping. I think the problem was with the safety switch in the plug head, not the pump itself. Interesting, the new pump no longer has the large safety switch and seems to have other minor updates / improvements.Of course, water on a pool cover is never free from debris, so this pump becomes a real pain as it starts to get tripped up by any sort of debris. The blue debris shroud is OK at keeping out large debris like leaves, but it is the small stuff that clogs up this filter. Wayne has a video that shows "how easy" it is to clean out but the reality is, the job is a pain and it happens regularly. In the 3 years that I have owned this pump, I probably have to take it apart to clear it of debris twice a month. It is very annoying. This pump cannot be depended on to keep working if you are away from home for an extended time.