8 foot skimmer box

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4runnerJoel

4runnerJoel

0
Sep 2, 2018
14
Chino hills
Hi all,
My wife and I recently stayed at a resort and their pool had a really neat feature with the skimmer box. They were effectively all around the pool and were anywhere from 6ft to 8-10 feet wide and basically like an overflow for an aquarium. The effect was the surface of the pool was pristine and didn't have any floating bits on the water or trash etc ( hotel pool with a bar so folks were pretty intoxicated and not focused on keep the pool clean).

Our pool is probably 18 years old and is in need of coping repair, tile and we were planning on doing the plaster too since everything else will be torn up.

Does anyone know what this style skimmer box/overflow box is called? I would love to add this in to our pool if it didn't break the budget. Thanks in advance for everyone's help.

Joel
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Keep in mind that they will need to be totally level for the length and also will need significant pump flow to flow water in to all that length ...
Id love to see the gallon size of that commercial pool and how big the pumps were ...
 
I would think the amount of flow over the edge to get those to work well enough would be significant, as in: expensive to run effectively. And I believe these would in essence be large water falls that might impact your pH because of the aeration. I'd want to see one in a residential pool, along with the associated electric bill, before I was the first to try it! ;)

And just to be a complete kill-joy, it seems this would necessitate removing a major chunk of the existing gunite, probably into or too close to the rebar. I'd guess this is something that would have to be engineered into a pool during the build, and not something that could be retrofit.
 
Its called a lautner edge and there are several variations. In a residential pool it's most common to have it set up as a perimeter overflow and in commercial installs it ends up looking more like a gutter on a lap pool.

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It's going to take a significant amount of demolition to retrofit an existing pool with this type of feature and I doubt the expense would justify it.
 
Thanks Brian! So there is a residential version. Interesting. Can they get clogged with leaves? Is there any counterpart to a skimmer basket? Seems like retrofitting one would be near impossible. There'd be rebar all along that area, right? Seems like you'd have to cut out and reconfigure a large chunk of rebar and gunite... I thought of suggesting a second skimmer, but maybe that would have similar challenges.
 
A skimmer would be much easier to install but won't achieve the effect that he's looking for.

It would be a major structural reconfigure to change to this style and probably easier to shoot a new wall inside of the existing pool to accomplish it. It is very possible to do but I would think that the expense would be prohibitive for very little gain.
 
bdavis466 said:
A skimmer would be much easier to install but won't achieve the effect that he's looking for.

It would be a major structural reconfigure to change to this style and probably easier to shoot a new wall inside of the existing pool to accomplish it. It is very possible to do but I would think that the expense would be prohibitive for very little gain.
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& don’t forget the balancing make up vaults & tank.. these are not super skimmers, they at to negate entrapment hazard- the pumps draw from a separate vessel not the bathing pool.
 

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Okay thanks for the info guys. I thought it was a neat feature and the added surface skimming was a bonus but if it would end up being a huge expense its totally not worth it.

The pool reno is not high on the lists of priorities right now but once it is I'll definitely create a thread to check what the builders say. We had one company come out a year ago and they quoted 30k to fix the tile, replace the coping and replaster. Sounded way out of our budget so we skipped it. The pool works great and it's just aesthetics so we are dealing with it for now.
 
Bear in mind it's all going to go into a residential 2" return pipe, so the water surface velocity is going to be limited by that.I'm sure there won't be a linear relationship between the mouth opening size and skimming efficiency.
 
sktn77a said:
Bear in mind it's all going to go into a residential 2" return pipe, so the water surface velocity is going to be limited by that.I'm sure there won't be a linear relationship between the mouth opening size and skimming efficiency.
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This is actually an extremely important point. You cant add a bunch of water through the plumbing if your system isnt designed for it.

When we start getting quotes on a remodel ( probably a few years honestly) I will be back for price checks. Thanks again all for steering me in the right direction
 
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