The 8 Best Pool Rakes
Special Honors
Leaf Bone This company manufactures pool-rake accessories that hook up to your ladder, or the edge of your above-ground pool, adjacent to your skimmer, and keep your pool rake submerged in water all day long, using your pool's natural current to catch debris. This means you won't need to empty your skimmer, or clean leaves out of your pool, as often – which makes for a win by all accounts. leaf-bone.com
Editor's Notes
April 28, 2020:
During this round of updates, while the SharkBlu EZ Clip, SplashTech Heavy-Duty and CJ Lifestyle Leaf Scoop were all removed due to availability issues, we added the Acronde Leaf Net to our rankings – a budget-friendly model that comes in a pack of two – as well as the Stanley 21882 – which features a particularly wide frame with a lip on it, to help fish large objects off the bottom of your pool.
With the lion’s share of offerings in this category being so remarkably similar in design, the real trick to pool rakes is finding the most-affordable option that can keep up to your lifestyle for as long as is reasonably possible. This can be tough. Due to the cold climate where I live, we have an unusually short pool season, and I’ve still been unable to find an option that lasts longer than three years. With that in mind, you might want to give a bit of thought to models like the FibroPro Professional and TK Pool Net, which are backed by lifetime warranties.
The only real major differentiator between most rakes is the size of their net, and our new additions this time around serve as a decent demonstration of the drawbacks and benefits associated with a large or small option. The Stanley 21882 has a mouth that’s over two feet wide, and a net that’s 17 inches deep, leaving plenty of room for you to drag it around your pool, picking up the bulk of unwanted debris in a single pass. However, its large size can be cumbersome, making it difficult to maneuver. By contrast, the Acronde Leaf Net is quite shallow, which makes it easier to handle, but less practical for large clean ups.
Other than that, the three basic things you should be looking for in a rake, that should be present in all of our selections for this category, are:
Quick Connect: Fishing a few leaves out by hand from time is just fine, but for serious cleanups you’re going to want to hook your pool rake up to an extension pole. Most rakes have spring-loaded connection systems that make this a painless process.
Marine-Grade Materials: Needless to say, pool rakes tend to spend a lot of time wet, so durable plastics, nylons and coated lightweight metals are preferable, as they aren’t prone to mold, mildew and corrosion.
Non-Marring Design: In a perfect world, pool rakes should only need to be used to skim debris off the surface of your pool. But practically speaking, there’s a good chance you’ll end up using them to scrape unwanted rubbish off the bottom of your pool. Even in the case of just skimming leaves off the top of the pool, you’re likely to come into contact with your pool liner as you go around the edges of your pool, so you want a rake without any corners, sharp edges or rough surfaces that might leave a blemish.