Thru wall skimmer / hard plumb final plans & ?'s

[PapaX5]

The skimmer is here, made one more trip to Lowe's for what I hope is the last PVC fitting I will need. (yeah right)
Got two of the custom fitting made up today. Here is a photo of the "before" with some lines drawn to show planned placement for skimmer and pvc plumbing.
[attachment=0:12o5nnsf]Skimmer Plan.jpg[/attachment:12o5nnsf]
1. Skimmer placement
2. Utilize existing return
3. Fountain
Black lines indicate there I am planning to place cutoff valves
Do I need to run the PVC down to the ground or is it ok to run straight from the pump over to the pool and up to the skimmer and return?
Wasn't sure if it needed to go to the ground for stability. The fountain is 3/4" pvc reduced from the 1 1/2" return line.
I am hoping for and welcoming any advice or input as to the pro's and con's of my proposed setup.
Thanks in advance for your help. Can't wait to get started. Will post progress photos as we go.

Tim D

 

[thinkflying]

What kind of skimmer did you get. I was planning on doing pretty much the same thing you have it looks like. I ordered a haywood skimmer which came in a couple days ago. But it has a slip on type hose fitting on the bottom. I have to figure out how to connect it into the system. Also, my Intex pool which is new, came with a different type through the wall fittings than my older ones. So I'm going to have to re-engineer the whole project. Just when I thought it was all figured out!

 

[PapaX5]

I got the Heritage wide mouth skimmer from WalMart online.
It has a threaded female connection in the bottom of it. I went to Lowes and bought a threaded male to 1 1/2" slip connection.
I'm thinking it should plumb right in.
There are several posts in the "above ground pool" forum that explain in great detail about the fittings that you can make to work with the intex connections. I built mine based on several of the posts in that forum.
GREAT information!!

Tim D

 

[Chenn001]

-Just wanting to see how the installation went. I have the exact same pool and i was thinking about doing the exact same setup (may or may not want fountain).
-What did you do with the original intake hole after installing the skimmer?

 

[PapaX5]

I am planning to work on mine this weekend. I have been back and forth over exactly how I wanted to do it.
I was actually planning to cap the original intake using the screw on cap from the waste port on my sand filter.
After looking at the way some other folks have done this I thougt about plumbing the old intake as a second return.
Anyone know if it is OK to have 1 intake and 2 returns or should you match them 1 for 1?