Gone for a couple weeks - Use main floor drain rather than skimmer?

[bertschb]

My pool is about as low maintenance as you can get with IFCS, SWCG, auto fill and a Pentair IntelliPH. The only thing I do is test the water and clean the skimmer basket. Even that aint much because there are very few trees around our pool so on a typical day the basket just gets half a dozen small leaves, a couple flower petals and some bugs. Honestly, I could probably leave everything set up the way it is and be gone a couple weeks with no problem but as a new pool owner I'm slightly paranoid about filling the skimmer basket and blowing up something.

I actually bought a second skimmer basket and put a net in it so I could ask a neighbor to just swap baskets when we're gone but I really don't want to ask for help.

Soooooo, I'm trying to decide how to proceed when we decide to leave the house for 2-3 weeks. Could I just set my floor drain to 90% and skimmer to 10% so almost all the water is pulled through the floor drain while we're gone? My thought is if for some reason multiple storms came through and there was enough junk pulled into the skimmer to plug it, it wouldn't matter because 90% of the water is moving through the main floor drain.

BTW, I have 90% of the water coming through the floor drain during the IFCS cycle (2 hours) then switch to 90% from the skimmer for the remainder of the pump run cycle (14 hours). This is controlled automatically through my EasyTouch panel with a Pentair IntelliValve.

Thoughts?

 

[Newdude]

The plan works for me. When are you leaving? Maybe you can get these (or similar) delivered in time. They always suck water even with leaves.

Inground skimmer guards

 

[bertschb]

Thanks for the reply @Newdude

I've looked at that skimmer guard but if it gets plugged, how would that be different than the skimmer basket getting plugged? I thought about modifying that skimmer guard by opening up holes in the bottom of it. That way if floating debris plugged the openings at water level, water could still enter the skimmer from under the skimmer guard. Of course, if I pull all the water form the floor drain it would be a moot point...