Hayward narrow skimmer v.s. wide mouth skimmer

[steppinthrax]

I have a 24' x 4' above ground swimming pool. When I bought the house it originally had a "standard" hayward skimmer. Recently I found the skimmer started to separate from the pool wall. I found after removal that the gasket had failed allowing water to get to the pool wall and cause a corrosion issue. I removed the entire skimmer and found the pool installers had used a piece of sheet metal to secure the skimmer into the wall that was intentionally cug larger than the opening itself.

I guess this was done intentionally so that when there is corrosion you simply remove and replace the sheet metal v.s. replace the pool wall. Anyway, I'm about to pull the trigger on either a Wide Mouth Hayward Skimmer v.s. a Standard Hayward skimmer. My question is does it really make much a difference v.s. a narrow mouth in my situation. My thinking is a wide mouth would take in more material, but it seems the opening in the wide mouth is the same size as the narrow mouth. Just the front side seems wide.

 

[911medic]

The Hayward wide mouth is the standard mouth skimmer with an attachment on it to widen the port that attaches to the pool.

Both eventually funnel back into the same size opening. Because of the attachment, the wide mouth skimmer will be suspended farther from the pool wall, so that's a consideration.

I have the standard mouth skimmer, and am happy with it. Many have the wide mouth and like them as well. I'm not sure how big of a performance difference there is.