Anyone Have a Venturi Skimmer?

[sbe]

I was wondering if anyone has a pool with a venturi skimmer and if they liked it.

The idea with these is that in addition to being hooked into your suction line they also get water from the return putting water into the pool. That water is routed through a venturi that creates suction to bring the water into the skimmer through the basket and then back out into the pool.

According to A & A who make a model called the Quikskim the skimmer requires about 8 gpm of return water to move 60 gpm through the skimmer. Since almost all the energy to move the water is coming from the return line rather than suction you could actually run them with no suction at all and they would run about as well (they hook up suction and run it at 8 gpm so you have a place to hook a manual pole vacuum plus somewhere to put in stuff like DE powder).

The idea seems pretty sound and I was wondering if anyone was using them and how they worked in practice compared to regular skimmers.

 

[EPCompX2]

We have one on our pool, and it seems to work very well. The only issue I have with it... when you take out the basket , anything falling back into the skimmer gets blown back into the pool. No big deal the infloor works great.

 

[sbe]

Do they seem to be any better than regular old skimmer? If so is the difference dramatic, like you can really see that stuff gets scooped up a lot better or is it more like they seem to work fine but its not a something that jumps out at you?

 

[EPCompX2]

Never really thought about it. But I do notice that I rarely see anything floating (including the tennis balls the dogs "throw" in). It really seems as though I get much better circulation as a whole than my previous pool. Hope this helps

 

[sbe]

It does help. I've decided to go with venturi skimmers.

If you don't mind my asking are the inlets that feed the water to the skimmers from the pump/filter the only returns for the water? If not if you wouldn't mind telling me how may other you have and whether they are on the wall or someplace else? Also did they plumb your system with separate feeds for the water going to the skimmers and any other returns and provide a valve so you could adjust how much water went to each?

Thanks.

 

[drjames]

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... type=&aq=f

http://www.poolskimusa.com/

http://www.dragonfly.biz/ Australia site

you may find these interesting.

The dragon fly is made in Australia..originally they made oil recovery skimmers and still do.
Works from suction and with a Hayward large leaf canister.
Pool skim is also excellent and costs only 90.00 dollars
both can be ordered from USA

cheers

james

 

[EPCompX2]

sbe,
Sorry for the delay. I have 2 main drains and 1 skimmer with the valve between them about 80% main drains and 20% skimmer. My return goes 99% of the time to my infloor which is 6 zones with a total of 26 heads, a small percentage goes to the venturi. I have never had an issue with a dirty pool, algea once in awhile. Keep the baskets clear and the filter clean (4 times a year) and it has been a great system.