Pool skimmer and Pump heat question?

[ProfitOfDoom]

I just got my pool up and running and had some questions. We just turned on our pump and filter and had it running for the first time. My first question is is it normal for the pump motor to get hot? I figure with all that water going through it,It should be pretty cool. But it gets pretty warm,how hot is to hot? I have a laser heat gauge I will go check in a few and see what the temp is after a hour of running.
The return is pretty powerful and moves the water around pretty well,and had pretty good suction at the skimmer box. I ran the backwash for a min and the glass looked clean so I set it back to filter and its running now.
Now that brings me to my last question,How should the wall skimmer work? I mean shouldnt really suck things in,I took out the basket and stuck my hand in the suction hole and it pulled my hand in pretty strong and it has a nice tornado going on. But looking at particals and things like a bee floated right on by and didnt get drawn in,any thoughts on this? Is my water level too high maybe? I didnt put the little floaty door on,but I wouldnt think that has anything to do with it?
Any thoughts on this,Let me know

 

[ProfitOfDoom]

I forgot to mention that it is a 27' pool and a Jacuzzi 1hp Pump
I just checked the temp on the motor can its at 127 degrees,that to hot? after running 1 hour

 

[ProfitOfDoom]

Well I shut it down for the night,It ran for almost 2 hours and stayed at the steady temp at around 125 degrees. I read around the net where they get so hot and shut down,or start squealing or grinding causing the hotness but I have none of that and the return seems very powerful.
You can hear it run,but im guessing thats normal,doesnt sound extremely loud or vibrating,squealing or grinding just a steady hum.
My skimmer still isnt taking much in,I put a small rubber pool basket ball right by the wall and let the water pull it by the skimmer and nothing just floated right on by as well as other small things,nothing seems to be drawn in?
I have the return jet thingy pointed to the side and slightly up,So when I look at it you can see ripples and water movement just hitting the top of the water and it brings everything all the way around the pool,but it doesnt find its way to the skimmer box?
LoL,Im going to bed frustrated,So if anyone could help me I appreciate it

 

[JohnT]

The pump motor should be pretty warm. 125F is probably normal.

The skimmer weir door is what makes the water flow fast and draws the debris in. It also keeps the stuff in the skimmer when the pump is off. You definitely want it installed.

 

[ProfitOfDoom]

Ok,that is great news about the motor,It says thermally protected so it should shut down if it ever became to hot right?
I snapped in the floaty door and yes it does work much better,but I dont think it still right. How should the skimmer work,should it really pull things in from feet away,or does it have to be right next to it?
Could my water level be to high or too low?
I have the wide mouth skimmer and there are 3 screws on the sides of the plate,my water level is at the center screw. So in other words the water level is in the middle of the skimmer box.
I moved the door with my hand and held it up higher and it really started sucking but it was too much and started getting air,So where should this door be when positioned?

 

[Sparkmaster]

Pump will get hot.. Water has nothen to do with the cooling of the motor.. Skimmer, i say anything over 6" - 8" away wont catch it.. That is from what i noticed from mine.. so i may be wrong..

 

[ProfitOfDoom]

Ok I made a vid it will be uploaded shortly,It just shows water level and where the door is when pump is running and how it draws water. From the video it looks like water is moving toward the box but doesnt have much pulling power stuff pretty much has to be touching the plate on the wall to get sucked in. Only thing I can think of is the return jet,the person across the street said they should be angled to the right stirring the pool around,Maybe this is wrong? Maybe the current is to strong for particals to flow in the skimmer box?

 

[Cleavitt]

As SparkMaster stated, the skimmer usually only "locks on" to things that get within several inches of the opening. Even then sometimes things will just seem to defy all the laws of physics and fly right by. A skimmer is usually very effective over a long period of time.

The return jets can have an impact of how effective the skimmer is. I once tried pointing a jet on one side of my pool directly towards the skimmer on the other side thinking it would help direct stuff into the skimmer. It actually created too much current on the wall around the skimmer and sent everything away from the skimmer. Pointing the jet 2 feet to the left or right of the skimmer seems to work much better (in my pool). You'll have to play around with the jets and find out what works for you. Ping pong balls make good test subjects. I think the most important thing though is to just use the jets to keep the surface debrit moving around the pool. sooner or later it's going to get in range of the skimmer.

You want the keep the water level roughly half way up the skimmer opening (give or take an inch or so). If the water level gets too low the skimmer may pull in air which isn't good for the pump/filter system.

Many pools have a valve that allows you to control how much water is pulled from the skimmer vs the main floor drains. You might need to adjust this valve if the skimmer has very little flow. I have mine set to about 75% skimmer.

 

[ProfitOfDoom]

Ok, I just had the guy next door look at my pool as he has a similar 30' "mines 27"
I told him about the problem on how it doesnt really draw things in the skimmer. So we sat there a wile and did the ping pong thing and watched how it circulated around and see if it would get sucked in,It did 1 out of 10 tries. We checked for clogs anywhere or air trapped,Nothing.
He said his pump wasnt as nearly as strong as mine where it shoots out of the return,We tried aiming the return everywhere still no help. Then he was reading the pump and it said a Jacuzzi 1HP pump "High Flow" He said this pump was designed for a actual jacuzzi hot tub type thing and the pump creates more push then pull. I just wanted to run this by other people and see if you agree,I mean it makes sense but you figure just the natural suction of the water would create a pull. But other then it just being to powerful and not enough suction,I cant explain it,there is no crack,air or leaks,What do you guys think?

 

[Cleavitt]

The "more push than pull" thing doesn't make any sense to me. The pump has to be pulling in the same amount of water that it is pushing out. If it is pushing out a lot of water, it has to be pulling that water from somewhere. FWIW, I have a Jacuzzi brand pump as well and it is a general purpose pool/spa pump.

My best guess is that your pump is pulling most of the water from the main drains instead of the skimmer. Do you have any way of adjusting the ratio? Some pools have a mechanism to adjust the intake ratio in the skimmer itself from what I understand. Mine has a valve in the plumbing just before the pump.

 

[ProfitOfDoom]

No,I dont think so. I have a skimmer box and a return hole,That's it.
Its just a hose from the bottom of skimmer,to the pump jar thing,passes through the strainer on the pump "what I call the pump jar thing", then goes through sand filter to our chlorine dispenser,then right into the pool.
I see nothing to adjust,there is a screw in the bottom of the pump jar thing,but im pretty sure its just to drain it.
Can anyone think of anything that would cause a weak suck?
I mean it does suck,if I take the basket out and stick my hand by the hole it really grabs it.

 

[Titanium]

PofD,

My built-in skimmer works every bit as poorly as yours does. We have a lot of trees that drop needles in the pool almost continuously. The existing skimmer did such a poor job that I found myself spending 15-30 minutes with the pool net trying to collect all of the floating needles. It was very discouraging to face that amount of work just to take a quick pool dip.

Then I found the PoolSkim. This little device skims up at least 10 times the floating garbage that the built-in skimmer collects. Best darn $90 I ever spent.

The only caveat is the PoolSkim requires a fairly strong return. Since my pool had 4 returns plus a fifth return in the overflow spa, I found that the only return with enough power to operate the PoolSkim was the return closest to the filter pump, which happened to be right next to the pool steps. Not the best location in the world, and I would have preferred to have it in the fourth pool return (the one right before the spa return), but I found that placing the PoolSkim in this location "robbed" too much water from the spa return such that there was almost no water coming out of the spa return.

Most of the time the PoolSkim leaves the pool almost completely clear of floating debris. One exception is that some debris clings to the pool wall at the water surface. Another exception is if the wind suddenly picked up and dropped a whole bunch of needles at one time. In either case, I just use my pool brush and "sweep" all of the debris in the pool towards the PoolSkim. Takes at most 2-3 minutes, and I get at least 90-95% of the floating garbage. If it is really, really bad I'll take another "sweep" of the pool.

Another benefit is that every thing that the PoolSkim catches is prevented from reaching my filter, thereby extending the time between cleanings.

http://www.troublefreepool.com/has-anyone-used-poolskim-t1076.html?hilit=poolskim

http://ellerbach.com/Pool/PoolSkim/

 

[ProfitOfDoom]

Those things work great,the intex pools have something similar. Only problem I see with this one is wouldnt this help contaminate the water more? Like sappy things that fall from the tree,leaves,etc, Wouldnt it help that stuff circulate around the pool more?
For right now I made a holder for my skimmer net and just hang it off the side and stuff just floats on in,But I will look into the poolskim,Thanks for the suggestion.