I've been trying to find some information about the actual function of the second intake outside of supplying enough water flow to the pump. Have seen plenty of threads that say it's just for safety purposes, or else talk about plugging up the second intake to make the skimmer work.
I'm in the position now where my skimmer doesn't work well without the flow reducer on the other intake. Ideally both would work with neither restricted but it doesn't seem to be the case so I leave the flow reducer off since the pool is covered most days and skimming is not effective with it on, with the hope that more of the sub-surface stuff is getting filtered by the other intake. I don't have any sense of whether or not this is true. I don't have any flow/pressure issues to the pump whether one intake is restricted or not.
So my question is, should I continue to do this or should I not bother and let the skimmer do its thing whether covered up or not? Will the skimmer's submerged basket still get the sub-surface stuff? Or do neither really accomplish this and I just need to focus on vacuuming?
I'm in the position now where my skimmer doesn't work well without the flow reducer on the other intake. Ideally both would work with neither restricted but it doesn't seem to be the case so I leave the flow reducer off since the pool is covered most days and skimming is not effective with it on, with the hope that more of the sub-surface stuff is getting filtered by the other intake. I don't have any sense of whether or not this is true. I don't have any flow/pressure issues to the pump whether one intake is restricted or not.
So my question is, should I continue to do this or should I not bother and let the skimmer do its thing whether covered up or not? Will the skimmer's submerged basket still get the sub-surface stuff? Or do neither really accomplish this and I just need to focus on vacuuming?