Plumbing Ideas for 3 skimmer setup

[mdb]

I have a pretty large L Shaped pool that I built about 7 years ago, and now I am going to re-do the equipment pad, so I'm looking to improve the plumbing setup. The largest issue is that I have 3 suction lines (all coming from Aqua Genies, all 1.5" Pipe) and then those are joined at the pad prior to running into the pump.

Where I'm looking to improve this is that currently I have them run in series, which does not give me equal suction across the various skimmers or equal pressure on the returns, so I'm looking to fix that. Here's an artist's representation (attached)... (ok, not an artist and it's MS Paint, not Visio... so be nice) of what I'm thinking on the suction side, return side would be similar.

[attachment=0:2dytr4tb]plumbing.png[/attachment:2dytr4tb]

I can re-do any pad plumbing but all lines are under a patio, so sadly I can't redo everything 2".

Does this look better than what I have now? Should I be looking at 2.5" to the pump or is 2" good enough where 3x1.5" lines join?

Any feedback on this would be really appreciated, and any other ideas on improving it would be great.

 

[jblizzle]

Welcome to TFP!!!

Really all you need to do is add a ball valve or better a true pool 2-way valve on each of the suction lines ... then you will be able to adjust how much suction comes from each of the lines. Changing the plumbing to your 2nd picture may only slightly help without the use of valves because the pipe lengths to each skimmer is still different.

What pump do you have? How many return lines do you have? Likely 2" pipe on the pad is plenty.

 

[mdb]

Thanks so much for your reply. Right now I do have ball valves on each line (for both return and suction), but I did not want to spend any more time with MS Paint than I had to . Three of them are good pool quality ones and three are the Home Depot specials where the valve handle is cracking (one more reason I'm doing this)...

All the lines are different lengths, so your point about setting them to different settings makes sense, I can definitely tell I get the most pressure out of the closest skimmer and the closest return. I have always run them all wide open, so that's a good idea.

There are some 4 way junction fittings I found that seem like they might do the trick - but the ball valves are still a must have especially at closing time here in WI. (Which this year here in WI doesn't look much different than opening season so far.)

I bought a new pump actually just recently the Hayward Super Pump 2hp. I can tell the old one has bearings going, and a cracked basket, and a leaking gasket, and I just didn't want to mess around with it anymore. That combined with having to change the filter sand this year is what got me started on this whole project.