Poolskim review.

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C

cruzmisl

0
May 26, 2007
185
Hi All,
I've been looking at this device for years and hesitated buying it.

I have a black locust tree near my pool which is absolutely beautiful BUT it is the messiest Dang thing ever. Little tiny brown leaves everywhere. It just so happens the one area of my pool is kind of a dead zone. Leaves just collect on the surface and sit there. After a while they get waterlogged and fall to the bottom. Tired of the maintenance I figured I'll drop the $100 and see if this thing works. It arrived quickly and took about 15 minutes to install.

I LOVE this thing! It has amazing suction and collects everything that was in the dead area. A true godsend and well worth the $100. I just wish I would have thought of it :)

This is one of those products that just plain works. Its not too obtrusive either and easily removable if necessary. My Blue Diamond gets along with it too.

Joe
 
I have loads of maple trees that drop leaves, helicopters and other nasties. The poolskim is the BEST thing that has happened to me! I, too, love mine and am glad I found it. You're right, it is the BEST $100 I have spent for my pool!
 
+1 on the Poolskim. Fantastic device.

I have 2 skimmers which didn't work too well with a low flow pump. On grass cut days, tons of grass clippings would be floating on the surface of the pool, and many would sink to the bottom and litter the bottom of the pool. Not to mention the leaves, flowers, seeds, etc. from multiple trees surrounding the pool. Now with the Poolskim, the surface of the pool is practically debris free, and therefore the floor of the pool is much much cleaner as well. All the stuff is in the Poolskim!
 
Just to add to this, I recently got a Poolskim and am equally pleased with it. It has vastly cut down on the amount of time I have to spend manually skimming. The Poolskim works much, MUCH better than the actual skimmer on my pool. Once the pump has been running for a while, the surface is pretty much totally clean even in my somewhat odd "S-shaped" pool, which has corners that don't get much circulation.

I did find that the unit needs a decent level of inlet flow in order to function up to its full potential, and that the better you can get overall circulation working, the faster it will work. In my case this meant limiting the flow from my other three inlets, and controlling their direction at the same time.

I found that rather than using the little "inlet limiters" that come with the unit, I had much more success by swapping out my eyeball jets for the "slotted" type. These have slots along the side of the ball rather than a hole in the middle, which has two effects on the flow. First, they reduce the flow quite a bit, and you can adjust the amount by turning the ball so that more or less of the slot is exposed. This of course directs more flow to the Poolskim inlet. Second, the slotted jets can redirect the flow a full 90 degrees so that it's directly along wall rather than out into the pool. This is MUCH more effective for creating a rotational circulation in the pool, and it induces stronger flow right along the wall where debris will sometimes hang out. This in turn causes surface debris to make it's sway to the Poolskim (or the pool's skimmer) much more quickly.

I tried the eyeball jets with smaller holes at first, but even when turned as far sideways as possible, these still directed the flow away from the wall, which didn't induce enough circulation where I needed it. The slotted eyeball jets made a dramatic improvement in this regard, and pretty much solved this problem.

I highly recommend the Poolskim, as well as the slotted eyeball jets.

Larry
 
lalittle said:
I found that rather than using the little "inlet limiters" that come with the unit, I had much more success by swapping out my eyeball jets for the "slotted" type. These have slots along the side of the ball rather than a hole in the middle, which has two effects on the flow. First, they reduce the flow quite a bit, and you can adjust the amount by turning the ball so that more or less of the slot is exposed. This of course directs more flow to the Poolskim inlet. Second, the slotted jets can redirect the flow a full 90 degrees so that it's directly along wall rather than out into the pool. This is MUCH more effective for creating a rotational circulation in the pool, and it induces stronger flow right along the wall where debris will sometimes hang out. This in turn causes surface debris to make it's sway to the Poolskim (or the pool's skimmer) much more quickly.

I tried the eyeball jets with smaller holes at first, but even when turned as far sideways as possible, these still directed the flow away from the wall, which didn't induce enough circulation where I needed it. The slotted eyeball jets made a dramatic improvement in this regard, and pretty much solved this problem.

I highly recommend the Poolskim, as well as the slotted eyeball jets.

Larry
Click to expand...

Can you possibly post a pic of this slotted eye ball, or where to get one? I haven't seen them at the pool stores, and I am getting some debris stuck on the walls like you said despite a completely clear pool surface with the pool skim.
 
beezar said:
Can you possibly post a pic of this slotted eye ball, or where to get one? I haven't seen them at the pool stores, and I am getting some debris stuck on the walls like you said despite a completely clear pool surface with the pool skim.
Click to expand...

It looks like fsteve65 beat me to it. The picture he posted is what I'm referring to, except that I got the Pentair version, which does not have the little symbol on the flat part (it's just flat and smooth in that spot.) The reason I opted for the Pentair is because it is offered in dark gray instead of the light grey that Hayward offers. The dark grey is a much better match for my plaster since the light grey ends up looking quite light underwater. My plaster is not very dark, so I originally bought a light grey version thinking it would match, but to my surprise it did not, and I ended up swapping it for a dark grey version.

Some other information that may or may not be useful (which I came across when searching for these) is that the Hayward version appears to be called a "Hydrosweep," as opposed to their normal eyeballs which they call "Hydrostream. The Pentair version is on page 248 of their 2011 catalog (https://www.pentairpartners.com/productcatalog/pdf/PentairPoolProductsCatalog2011_US.pdf), under the "Wall Fittings - Inlets" section. The Pentair part numbers for the slotted eyeballs are:

White - 540000
Black - 540001
Dark Grey - 540002

There also appears to be a number of knockoff versions of these. I'm not entirely clear what (if any) differences there are from one brand to another other than slight cosmetic changes.

Note that the white ones were the easiest to find, both online and at the more robust local pool stores. The grey and dark grey versions, however, took some hunting.

Larry
 
fsteve65 said:
Beezar they look like this and here is one place they are available...http://www.amazon.com/Hayward-Direction ... B0038A8LEQ
Click to expand...

So I got the slotted returns and yes, they work great. My pool and the walls of the pool are even cleaner then before!

Still loving the Pool Skim. I tell every pool owner I know to get one even if they don't have many trees/flowers around their pool, because there's just a lot less junk that sinks to the bottom of the pool, and a lot less debris that enters the skimming baskets, meaning less work spent emptying the baskets and possibly less frequent backwashes.

Of course you need to empty the poolskim, but that's a snap.
 
beezar said:
So I got the slotted returns and yes, they work great. My pool and the walls of the pool are even cleaner then before!

Still loving the Pool Skim. I tell every pool owner I know to get one even if they don't have many trees/flowers around their pool, because there's just a lot less junk that sinks to the bottom of the pool, and a lot less debris that enters the skimming baskets, meaning less work spent emptying the baskets and possibly less frequent backwashes.

Of course you need to empty the poolskim, but that's a snap.
Click to expand...

It's great to hear that the slotted returns worked for you. When I first found them and discovered how well they worked, it really surpised me that they weren't more well known.

The overall system that can be created with the slotted jets and the Poolskim really does work remarkably well, and like you, I highly recommend it to people.

Larry
 
Hi all, Just ordered my Pool Skim and was curious...i have an older pool with slanted 1" diam return pipes....can I use the
Polaris 1" stub pipe connection recommended by PoolSkim or do I need to have a pipe that return straight on perpendicular to the wall? Also, is it just as easy to find a pvc adapter that can transition a straght 1" pipe to a 1.5" threaded connection? Thanks in advance for any comments or advice!
 

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Very interested in pools skim sounds like something would work for me

However bringse to my issue before I found you guys I had a guy he installedy pentaire pump and dollar filter since it worked great never paiduch attention. Till now when I'm comfortable to start making some upgrades. Low and behold he installed my intake and out take backwards. My intake should be way below waterline with a gray cover with holes in it to avoid things like leaves and my out should be near top where eyeball should go. It's backwards he plumbed it wrong. Now I know y always frustrated that water level had to be so high to run pump without getting that sucking noise. How can I fix this reason I had someone else Inatall I'm handicap hands unsteady and my husband is a computer cut. I want very much to make following kids this year:
1. Install my thru wall skimmer hawyard (not large mouth) which I purchased last yr and still not installed
2. Run my auto vac once the skimmers installed I've been told can. Of run my auto vac without the skimmer
3. Water fall PVC to cool my water gets up to 90 degrees here when our temps start staying at 110 live in az.

Help on what to do about the reversed plumbing should I fix that before adding amy mods if so how?

As always thank u for your help


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
So I just bought one of your pool skims... The fittings included don't fit my return and I'm not sure what I need. Lowes was useless. I got some grumpy old man who didn't want to help me.

It looks like my existing ring on my return is 2" but like I said he was unable to help.

Went to the pool store but they were closed. Any idea what I need?

Thanks
 
SWAG:

From what I saw in the video.... the skimmer needs to be lower in the water and it appears that, instead of a vacuum being created, the water is trying to bubble OUT of the skimmer... so that would be pushing things away from the skimmer.

Never having seen this thing, but having a rough idea how it must work.... I'd say (1) lower the skimmer or raise the water level and (2) make sure that whatever creates the suction (guessing a venturi) is aligned perfectly with the water coming out of the return (nozzle).
 
I felt like I was spending more time skimming the pool than actually enjoying it. The poolskim looked like a good solution based off of reviews on Amazon and here. It arrived a few days ago and I absolutely love this thing.

It was confusing, to me at least, to install because you get several plumbing parts for multiple configurations (which is good but doesn't make things simpler of course) and in my opinion the video on their actual site on how to install was confusing. However I just searched poolskim installation on YouTube and found a video from the manufacturer that looked like it was filmed in the '80s lol that actually made it pretty simple. There's a few different plumbing configurations based on how high or low or in between your jet is below the water line and also what type of vacuum you have. Basically use the best plumbing option to get the poolskim at least a couple inches below the water line but not so low to where the floating basket can come out. The video is list the exact range, mine's a little bit lower And works great. Also needs to be level. Need to tighten the screws on the PVC elbows all the way which takes a little bit of muscle...i saw one video (not from the manufacturer) where they were gluing them together, i would say that's a viable option once you're 100% confident you like the configuration and it's correct.

It works exactly how it says it's going to work. Basically creates a little Whirlpool that all the floating debris go into. For my pool, It'll get most the stuff right away and you won't notice anything floating within an hour. If you're having to skim a lot more than you want then buy this immediately.
 
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