Skimmer Box Basket Causing Low Suction

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darren1980

Member
Apr 5, 2023
7
Missouri
I've noticed that when my basket is in the skimmer box, that the water just kinda swirls around but any debris just floats on top. If I remove the basket it immediately sucks it down. I'm surprised to see the basket affecting the suction that drastically. As a result of this it just doesn't seem to be doing the best job keeping the water clean. Has anyone see this or have a solution?

Darren
 
Darren,

Does your skimmer have a weir door? It is a floating door that moves up and down with the water level. It is what makes a skimmer... skim the surfae of the water. Without a weir door the water is sucked from the bottom of the skimmer's mouth and the surface water just tends to sit there.

The weir door is in that tunnel between the pool and the skimmer basket. Take a look and see if you have one.

Also, what speed are you running your pump??

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
Is your basket floating or sitting in the skimmer? If floating water may be going underneath it and you’ll need to weigh it down with a rock ( one bigger than your pipe)
 
Thanks for all the responses. First I've heard of a weir door (new pool owner here), but googling it I do not believe I have one.

The basket does stay all the way down on its own.

I have two different timers on the pump and it runs at 2250rpm about half of the day at 2700rpm the other half. Based on my visual inspection both seem to have the same result when the basket is in, and to be honest there is rarely anything ever sitting in the bottom of the basket.

I may engage the installers again and see what they think.

For what it's worth I should have mentioned - Pool is 15,000 and the pump is a Pentair IntelliFlo VSF. There are two skimmer boxes and a drain in the bottom, the tech actually partially closed the drain at the bottom to see if that would increase suction into the boxes but didn't seem to make a difference from what I can tell.

Darren
 
Without a weir door your skimmer is just a drain, not a skimmer.

For reference i run my intelliflo vsf 22.5 hours a day at 1000 rpm and 45 min x2 @ 2500 rpm just to skim thoroughly. I have a SWG.

Do you have any water features that require you to run the pump that high for all day? Otherwise seems like overkill just on paper…
 
Darren,

All skimmer come with a weir door, but they are often missing on old pools, and lazy installers do not install them on new pools. They are not an option, they are a requirement for proper skimming.

Show us several pics of your skimmer and your equipment pad and maybe we can come up with some ideas...

Do you know if both skimmers are individually plumbed back to your equipment pad?
Do you know if your main drain is plumbed back to your equipment pad or is it connected into the bottom of your skimmers?

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
Yeah, I definitely think I need to start by addressing the weir door. I'll run this by the installers, which are the most reputable in the area and by most accounts did a really great job, so surprised this didn't get brought up.

I don't have a pic of the skimmer boxes themselves right now but here is one of the equipment pad. All three are plumbed all the way back to the pad.

Thanks for all the insights!

Darren
 

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Darren,

For now, I would suggest that you almost shut off the main drain (open about a crack) and this should cause an increase in the suction at the skimmers. It won't fix anything, but it might help a little.

Thanks for the pic..

Jim R.
 
OK, so the weir doors were there, they were just pushed down all the way down and were just sitting completely horizontal, about 4 inches below the water line, basically doing nothing.. I was able to pull the correct side loose and it floated up correctly. It was like this in both skimmer boxes, so they just apparently just weren't installed correctly. Now that I've really looked, I have a way better understanding of how the skimmer boxes work in the first place. It had an immediate impact, the surface was completely clear in about 3 hours. I will not probably start to lessen the load on my pump and run it a lot less and/or at a much lower GPM. Thanks for all the help!
 

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