Primary Strainer

[Captain 776]

I think this idea can help everyone who has a pool. It keeps all kinds of debris from ever reaching your filter, especially all those particles and debris that can pass through the fairly large openings in a standard skimmer basket.
You can find these in the kitchen gadget section of most stores. Measure the top of your skimmer basket and find a screen type strainer the same size, I then ground the handle off.
it is amazing all the "stuff" this catches, you can even see in this pic, some fine material on the screen.
keep it from ever reaching your filter.

what do you think?



Captain

 

[cowboycasey]

they work great and that can also be a problem, if it get completely filled and stops flow to your pump and it will have a very bad day... just make sure you are always checking it, pumps are expensive...

 

[Captain 776]

I used to run the pool with just sump and skimmer open and only opened the vacuum port when I was going to vacuum.
Now I leave all 3 valves open so I am always skimming, main drain is open to provide water and my vacuum port is about 16-18 inches below the surface so I am filtering the water from 3 elevations in the water column.
With all 3 valves (skimmer, vacuum, sump) open, I still get good flow into the skimmer.

You are 100% correct when you say it can become blocked and cause a problem. There were times when I was just running on the skimmer and sump, a windstorm came thru and put a lot of debris in the pool which quickly covered the fine screen, the pump wasn't cavitating, but there sure was an increased suction on this screen when it is covered. I could tell when I tried to pull it out to clean it.

I plan to run with all 3 valves open, I think drawing water from the 3 locations helps to keep the water clear(er).