Removing an old weir

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ErniesPool

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May 22, 2013
127
Dallas, TX
In doing pool maintenance this week I noticed I have a cracked weir. Most of the sites on the Internet talk about spring-loaded pins that retain the weir in the housing. My weir is an old one, possibly 25 years old, and it looks to me like the only way to get the weir out is with a hacksaw blade, cutting one or both of the mounting pins. Anybody run into a weir that appears to be permanently mounted in the housing, or is there something magic I am missing?

No, there are no tabs on the bottom of the weir that release the pins. There are also no tabs that you pull back that release the weir. :|
 
Hey, pool_dufus,
We replaced the weir on our (now) 25-year-old skimmer. That was 7 1/2 years ago, and I'm pretty sure our situation was just as you describe yours. I do remember that it was challenging, but I don't remember what we had to do. Something that involved having my head and arms inside the skimmer, I think. I know the replacement weir came with an assortment of parts, some of which we did not use. I will surely take a look to see if I can tell how we accomplished it, and I will report back to you within a few days. If I don't, please PM me with a reminder.
alanpaul
 
@keene - Nope. Nothing unscrews as far as I can see. The weir has not buttons or other observable moving parts. I see pins about the size of a pencil lead that go into the skimmer body. Sure don't want to crack THAT! @alan - yes, please do! Before I take a hacksaw to it and possibly make matters worse, I want to be sure I am not overlooking something.

Would a picture help?
 
Okay, pool_dufus, Just for you I stuck my head in the skimmer!

And now I remember....

Our weir has 2 small hinges, each just inset from the outside edges.

Below the movable weir, there is a stationary bottom piece you'd never see, if you weren't actually looking for it. You can feel it from inside the skimmer chute, if you reach down through the hole in the deck.

It's a separate stationary horizontal piece that runs all the way across the opening, and it is the lower half of the 2 hinges.

On ours, I could feel a small screw in the center of the stationary frame, its head facing towards the skimmer basket. And I wouldn't be surprised if there were 2 other screws toward the far ends of the piece, as well.

Unscrew, and remove the entire assembly (not an easy task).
Then replace with an entire bottom frame/hinge and weir door that matches the height and width you require.

I hope this helps.
Good luck!
 
Sorry, I got side tracked with pool chemistry. I'm ready to attack the problem again. More info today. So far from looking from the pool side, I see nothing in the way of set screws on the bottom of the weir or on the back side facing the pool. I'll stick my head into the skimmer today and look from that side.
 
YES! Alan, you are correct! There is a single screw in the middle of the stationary frame below the weir. There are "bumps" at each end, but I don't feel a screw. So, you are saying loosening this single screw releases the stationary part of the weir, the frame??
 

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OK. Loosening that screw somehow allowed me to remove the old weir. It is shown below with the screw and the little bracket that I pulled out before putting in the replacement weir. Somehow, although it is not obvious to me, that bracket kept the old weir anchored in place. ?????

One comment about the new weir. Once the pins are pulled allowing the spring to expand, it sits in the skimmer anchored only by the pressure of the two tabs against the sides of the mouth of the skimmer. Guess that works. Seems to. There is nothing to prevent the weir from slipping, but so far - so good.

I'm assuming I don't need the screw and the bracket any longer. ??? Do I???

Thanks for the tip! The center screw in the little bracket below the old weir was the trick for getting the old one out!
 

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To me your old weir looks like an aftermarket one that should not have had anything to do with the bracket and screw.

I had a skimmer with that bracket and screw and the corresponding weir had little pins that were held in the clips on either side of the bracket ... it did NOT have the spring loaded tabs.

When I had to replace it due to the plastic pins wearing out, the weir and bracket came as a unit that you then slipped the new bracket into the skimmer slot and put the screw back in.
 
Jason, sounds like you are saying I need to put the bracket back in. The only role I can see for the little plastic piece (bracket) in the photo is it would keep the weir from sliding inward toward the skimmer basket. The old weir is spring loaded and if you look carefully you can see the little holes where the pins probably were pulled when it was installed. It looks to me to be original equipment ... same color as the plastic in the skimmer itself.
 
I am saying that the spring loaded weir would not need the bracket. And I am almost positive that the weir you pulled out was NOT the original equipment that would require the bracket and screw ... this is based on me having a similar bracket in my skimmer at my previous house.

From what I have seen, original equipment weirs are not made of the flimsy plastic with a chunk of styrofoam showing. Now there is a chance that the spring loaded weir was installed at the same time as the skimmer, but I do not think that is the weir that would have come with the skimmer.
 
Oh, OK. The whole weir bracket assembly in my pool is a mystery to me. Built into the whole PVC skimmer assembly is a 1/4" high X 1/16" wide little "wall" across the bottom of the mouth of the skimmer inlet. The bracket in the picture I sent fits into slots in each end of the little wall and is secured by the set screw. After I unscrewed the set screw I was able to remove the old weir, but I'm not at all sure that the screw had anything to do with my being able to remove it. I went to Leslie's and bought an aftermarket replacement that has the standard spring-loaded bracket that presses against the outside walls of the mouth of the skimmer. I have removed the bracket completely as I can see no reason for it to be there with the new weir.

I think you agree that with this type of weir you don't need any kind of retaining bracket. I'm going to try living without it.
 
P_D,
I can tell you that 7 1/2 years ago, we purchased a weir replacement kit. I'm pretty sure it was identical to what we removed: A screw in the center, and no springs that I can recall. The kit also included additional pieces that were not necessary for our installation.

So, it seems ours is a different weir; just a hinged piece of plastic that screwed in as the base, and an upper part with styrofoam encased in the top section. I don't think they separated.

The original weir door had been broken off, likely from Hurricane Wilma debris. We had whole trees in our pool, and a good part of our neighbor's aluminum pool screen enclosure. Wilma happened on the closing date for our purchase of the house. It was postponed about 10 days, but the owners didn't clean or repair anything. Electricity was out for several days, and the pool was a green dump.

I'm very glad you were able to replace your weir; it'll make your skimmer work efficiently now. And I hope you pool chemistry is back on track.

Good work. :-D
 
I'm thinking the weir I replaced was indeed an aftermarket on and not an original replacement. The one I bought is OK, but I think it is going to slide around in the mouth of the skimmer because it has nothing but friction to anchor it to the walls of the skimmer. I'm going to poke around on the Internet and see if there isn't one that is a direct replacement for my skimmer that somehow involves this set screw and the mysterious bracket. Yes, pool chemistry is good, but I sure burn through a lot of chlorine here in TX even with a CYA of 50 or so. I may add some left over trichlor tablets to bring the CYA up a little more to try and reduce the chlorine burn.
 
P_D,
Because we don't throw ANYTHING away, we still have the bag and the extra parts from the weir.

Here's our info:
Hayward brand Weir Assembly Kit
Model SPX1070KHR
Cost in late 2005: $17.99

Our skimmer is a Hayward -- that's what the cover disc on the deck says -- and that's what led us to this product, along with the size of the weir door our skimmer required.

I'm guessing, without looking online, that there are quite a few kits out there, designed for different skimmers with different measurements of rectangular openings for the weir.

Glad your situation is generally under control. :whip:
Alan
 
I found the correct weir for my pool by poking around on eBay. It seems it is the Sta-rite 8650-4 weir, or at least that is a correct replacement part. It comes with the mysterious bracket that attaches by 3 screws to my skimmer base, and the weir itself swings on this bracket where it is attached (hinged) by two plastic posts. The replacement weir comes as one piece. This is a much better arrangement than the aftermarket solution of spring-loaded posts that hold the weir in position with friction. I can see that the replacement weir may shift if there are a lot of waves in the pools (as per grandkids splashing around) and then the aftermarket weir may become jammed and not rotate as it should.

I will stick with the $15 weir I bought and see if it works. If not, I now know what to look for on line that will solve my problem. Can't beat the Internet. Should have poked around before running down to Leslie's and possibly wasting $15.

Thanks, Alan for the info. I think this Hayward is 1/8" too wide and my bracket had 3 holes in it, not one. If you Google the Sta-rite part number above or go to eBay and search for it, you will see what I am talking about above. I hope this posts helps someone with a similar weir replacement problem.
 

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