How to remove this square plug

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riny

riny

Gold Supporter
Aug 20, 2020
194
NY, USA
Pool Size
10800
Surface
Vinyl
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
Jandy Truclear / Ei
You'll have to forgive me for asking a monumentally stupid question... but how do you remove this square-head plug? It's at the bottom of my skimmer. I can sort of reach down there with channel locks but the angle is so tight that I can't get any leverage to turn it.

The head of the plug is about 1 1/4" on each side. Do they make some kind of square-head wrench which fits over it?
 

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You can use a basin wrench or a plug wrench depending on how deep and accessible it is. An adjustable basin wrench on a telescopic arm would work. Just be careful as most wrenches are cast metal with serrated jaws to “bite” into whatever you are trying to turn. Too much torque and you can easily shear off the top of the plug especially if it was glued into place.
 
You can probably find something like square stock steel at Lowes or Home Depot.

Maybe glue a 2"PVC cap on a length of 2" PVC pipe and cut a square hole in the cap that fits over the square plug.

Most likely, it's glued in and won't come out.

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Ok, since everyone is asking why... here's a picture of my skimmer from the outside. My pool is semi-inground and the side with the skimmer is exposed.

You can also see my new GLI ProMesh safety cover. Before closing, I plugged the skimmer opening with a rectangular plug and lowered the water level a bit. But we've since had a lot of rain and the cover is now swimming. I need a way to lower the water level and keep it below the cover all winter long.

At first I was going to try and add a cover pump. But then I realized: that's silly! I already have an exposed, unused skimmer port. So my thought was: for the winter, I'll move the plug from the unused hole to the drain hole. I'll use a union and connect some flex to that second port, run it down next to the overflow line, and unblock the skimmer opening. This way in the winter I have a worry-free skimmer-level gravity drain. The bottom of the skimmer opening is about 8-9" below the cover, which is within the 18" that GLI requires. In the spring, I'll remove the flex and swap the plug back.

This all depends on being able to remove that plug and put it in the other hole though.

What do you think, are there any other holes in this plan?
 

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Or try getting at it from the bottom? A piece of hard wood cut to fit on a table saw and put a wrench on that?
Edit: if you try this remember to turn clockwise - opposite what you'd be used to.

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Back from Thanksgiving... I took a picture from the bottom and I don't see any obvious glue drips. However: I found a hefty metal tool that fits solidly into the bottom and tried to turn it from below, but I couldn't get it to budge. I put as much pressure on it as I felt comfortable with and it didn't move even a tiny bit. So I guess it must be glued after all.

@Dirrby, where do you get clockwise from? Whether it's from above or below, the plug itself still needs to spin counter clockwise to unscrew.

Anyway, short of somehow drilling it out, I think it might be time to give up on this plan. Given that the skimmer drain is exposed, my next thought was to cut in a 3-way valve with summer & winter positions. I could put it just below that tee with the bonding probe, and maybe even tie it into the overflow, which I'm hoping to better hide in the spring.
 

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it could be drilled with a core drilling bit and a variable clutch hand drill. You just match the core size to the inside diameter of that plug from below and run the drill at a slow speed with steady even pressure so it doesn’t bind up. Use the lowest torque setting possible on the clutch to avoid stressing the skimmer body. Then you just glue a fitting into the bottom of the port (it’s designed to have a fitting either glued on the inside surface or around the outside surface depending on what PVC size you want to use) and add whatever valves and pipes you want.
 
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riny said:
Back from Thanksgiving... I took a picture from the bottom and I don't see any obvious glue drips. However: I found a hefty metal tool that fits solidly into the bottom and tried to turn it from below, but I couldn't get it to budge. I put as much pressure on it as I felt comfortable with and it didn't move even a tiny bit. So I guess it must be glued after all.

@Dirrby, where do you get clockwise from? Whether it's from above or below, the plug itself still needs to spin counter clockwise to unscrew.

Anyway, short of somehow drilling it out, I think it might be time to give up on this plan. Given that the skimmer drain is exposed, my next thought was to cut in a 3-way valve with summer & winter positions. I could put it just below that tee with the bonding probe, and maybe even tie it into the overflow, which I'm hoping to better hide in the spring.
Click to expand...
If it’s unscrewed from the top side and you are looking up at it from under/below, it turns clockwise to loosen, because that’s counterclockwise when you view it from up top.
 
Bperry said:
If it’s unscrewed from the top side and you are looking up at it from under/below, it turns clockwise to loosen, because that’s counterclockwise when you view it from up top.
Click to expand...
So, just to clarify, you have to turn the plug clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time?

:p

What direction does the plug go if you are looking at it from the side?

Note: Electrons can be in a superposition of spin up and spin down, which seems to be a similar property, but I did not realize that it applied to skimmer plugs.
 
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Bperry said:
If it’s unscrewed from the top side and you are looking up at it from under/below, it turns clockwise to loosen, because that’s counterclockwise when you view it from up top.
Click to expand...

Ah, I see what you mean. If you're lying on your back and looking up then clockwise & counterclockwise are reversed. In my case, there's not enough clearance to get totally below so I'm kneeling next to the skimmer, still looking down from above, and operating a tool that's inserted from below. So it's still counterclockwise for me, although it's clockwise for the bottom of the tool which is facing the ground.

@JamesW in fact every time you turn something, you're turning it both clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time, depending on your perspective.

This thread is very quickly going to turn into a discussion on frames of reference, I can already feel it. :)
 
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Bperry said:
If it’s unscrewed from the top side and you are looking up at it from under/below, it turns clockwise to loosen, because that’s counterclockwise when you view it from up top.
Click to expand...
Took me 10 minutes of standing in my kitchen trying to imagine unscrewing the fitting from both sides before I was finally smart enough to hold my hand above my head and that's when it clicked!

In school, I always had trouble with the right hand rule for X,Y,Z, axis, especially when I kept trying to make it work with my left hand! :brickwall:

And this thread is turning into a discussion about threads. 🤔

--Jeff
 
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riny said:
@JamesW in fact every time you turn something, you're turning it both clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time, depending on your perspective.
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You can’t turn a plug clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time.

I have an identical plug and I held it over a mirror so that I could see the top and bottom at the same time.

I put a black line on the plug to make the direction of movement easy to see.

I unscrewed the plug from a threaded fitting and the plug rotated counterclockwise from the top and the bottom.
 
JamesW said:
You can’t turn a plug clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time.
Click to expand...

Think about a clock like this one:

272891.jpg


Hang it on a string in the middle of the room. You stand on one side of the clock, and get a friend to stand on the other side, so you and your friend are facing each other with the clock in between. If the hands are turning clockwise for you, then which way are they turning for your friend?
 
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