Welcome To My Nightmare.

[DarnPool]

Moved into a house which had been mostly vacant for at least 10 years. (we're only renting)
House has a pool, which I would guess has been neglected for those 10 years.

Here are photos of the pool after we had drained alot of water and removed about 30 cubic feet of muck.

Here is a photo after we removed all the muck and started power washing.

At any rate, I was wondering if anyone can tell me what I have going on with this skimmer. I'm assuming the plugged port connects to the bottom drain. The other connects to the pickup side of the pump.

And what the heck is this?

Any info or insights on anything anyone can provide will be sincerely appreciated.

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

Many skimmers come with two ports, and builders will often install a two port skimmer in a place where only a single port skimmer is required. So it is possible that there is a pipe to the main drain behind that plug and it is also possible (likely even) that there is nothing at all behind that plug.

Your mystery item is a float valve for use with a skimmer. It is designed to shut off the skimmer if it ever runs dry, so the pump won't draw in air. It is only useful if the pump has somewhere else to draw water from, like a main drain.

You have already done the difficult work, the rest of getting the pool working should be easy by comparison.

 

[duraleigh]

Since you have no other suction skimmers or lines (and I assume only one suction line coming to the pump) that plugged hole in the skimmer went to the main drain. I am sure someone plugged it because the main drain was no longer functioning.

Removal of that plug will be tough to get a tool down in there, but more importantly, may open up a bigger can of worms when you do.

 

[DarnPool]

Have only dealt with with AG pools previously.
What types of issues would cause the main drain to cease functioning?

Cause you know I'm gonna get that plug out...

 

[DBfan187]

if it's anything like the plugs I've seen, it's glued down in there and there's nothing behind it like Jason said

 

[RobbieH]

I have one in my skimmer. It's glued in and there's nothing behind it.

 

[duraleigh]

Cause you know I'm gonna get that plug out..

Man, do I understand that! We may be distant cousins.

A common cause is the main drain gets plugged up and the homeowner simply doesn't feel like tackling that troublesome job. If he suspects it's full of junk (usually is) he can just plug the hole and, for the most part, the main drain is removed from the system.