Skimmer Location

Matchless1 · Mar 17, 2016

I am hopefully about to start breaking ground next Tuesday. Design is final, except now I'm just a little concerned about skimmer placement. I have a weather station at my house that has collected data over the past year. Among other things, the wind direction shown in the bottom of the first photo seems to overwhelmingly be from the SE and NE throughout the year. It's hard to tell, but the wind speed on average is less than 5 mph for the entire year.

The second photo below shows my planned skimmer locations along with a North arrow. Skimmer #1 (bottom right) seems to be positioned ideally for SE winds. However, my concern is Skimmer #2 (top left) and the fact that it faces W/NW, which is a very small percentage of the time for the prevailing wind direction. Should I be concerned about the location of Skimmer #2 or not? Is there a better location I could move it to? Keep in mind that everywhere there are green rocks on the edge, those rocks go down into the water, so those locations are not an option for putting a skimmer.

Am I being to nit picky? Will all the debris basically find its way to the two skimmers regardless of wind direction? Note that I do have 6 returns, shown as R1, R2, etc. below. Thanks!

Matchless1 · Mar 18, 2016

The screen shot below shows where I am considering moving Skimmer #2 to (left side). Would this be better than where it was or worse?

Sorry, I the North arrow is gone, but you can reference the photo in the first post.

Richard320 · Mar 18, 2016

I think I'd have an easier time understanding things if you could draw an arrow indicating the wind direction in relation to the pool and highlight the skimmers. I'm not seeing them.

That said, if you have a skimmer at the prevailing downwind side, it will catch most of the debris. The second skimmer would function as a backup water supply for the pump when the main skimmer is packed full of crud.

Matchless1 · Mar 18, 2016

Richard, please see below. The original design has the skimmer on the left moved up by the stairs (see original photo in 1st post).

pooldv · Mar 18, 2016

Yes, I would go ahead and move the skimmer on the left. Stuff generally will make it into a skimmer anyway but the sooner it gets there the better so it won't water log and sink. You still may end up with leaves stuck on the shelf. But, that is better since it is shallow.

Helen203 · Mar 18, 2016

So, I am a pool newby, pump just started running this afternoon. I was advised that the returns didn't matter, but I just stepped in from watching my returns shoot debris to the skimmers, so I believe (based on several hours of experience, LOLOLOL) that it matters.

jblizzle · Mar 18, 2016

I agree that moving the skimmer makes sense (the weather data is awesome!!!). Might want to consider moving R4 to the other side of the light too, so it is not so close to the skimmer.

pooldv · Mar 19, 2016

It can matter where returns are in relation to skimmers. But, I think it matters more that they do not shoot the debris past the skimmer. If one does then you can point it more down into the pool to reduce the surface movement or reverse the circulation pattern. The most important part of setting up your returns is creating a clockwise or counterclockwise circular water circulation movement (try both). This will make the biggest difference from a return standpoint.