Infloor system as only return conundrums

[Ourad]

So I’ve been tossing around ideas in my head to reduce the amount of time I have to spend manually skimming the small debris/pollen off the surface, as my skimmers don’t seem to cut it. I have an 18x36 pool with 2 skimmers, a main drain, and an attached spa with its own skimmer and returns. Only pool return is an IFCS. Spa has heads as well. Intelliflo VSF pump.

I gave the infloor a go when i first moved in but it was pretty worthless, and (it has no drain+leaf canister to push things to) so I eventually abandoned it and switched to a robot (big brain move there).

Ive been playing with various speeds on the pump, and at 1200rpm I was only getting about 12-15gpm of flow through the system. Skimmers didn’t really work (4-5 gpm per, main drain off) , but I wanted to keep pump speeds down cause I like pinching those pennies. After reading through an extensive IFCS discussion here I realized the in floor is throttling my flow/increasing head/ whatever the appropriate terminology is, so I cranked open the previously closed spa return valve and voila I got up to 28 or so gpm at the same pump speed. Skimmers started moving, progress was made.

Now, since some fool designed my pool without any pool returns, I have no other valves to open. What I’m wondering is, can I just remove the guts of the IFCS manifold so it’s not switching between zones and is instead just another return basically, and in doing so reduce some head loss and increase gpm ->improve skimming? Is this a bad idea for any reason? I suppose I get better circulation when the heads pop up and rotate regularly, and if I do this the water will just sort of ooze out of the heads cause there won’t be much pressure. I feel like that’s probably not a big deal though.

Appreciate any input!

 

[Jimrahbe]

O,

I am no fan of IFCS, but if you remove the guts, then I would assume all the water would go to all the returns/heads at the same time.. Basically, meaning that each one would have little flow.

Sorry I am no help, as I can't think of how to make your system work better without wall returns.. Or do you have wall returns but they are just controlled by the IFCS??

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[cfherrman]

Might make the skimmer "reach" father out but I don't think you will get the return push that we get to push stuff to the returns

 

[Ourad]

Nope no wall returns. I mean, I guess top step and bench heads sort of act like wall returns for a certain portion of their clock face, except the sleeve for the bench head is stripped and it just pops out, resulting in a sad looking bubbler effect basically. I use it for aeration ?

Whole lotta no movement on the pool surface basically. I guess I could shut off one of the pool skimmers and try to supercharge the spa/other pool skimmer, cause the spa is obnoxious to clean.

 

[jonpcar]

Ourad, you are right...your IFCS has some major flaws...no wall returns is a huge mistake for IFCSs IMO. Your proposed solution is a decent one and could reduce your head loss significantly although with diminishing gains since you already have opened up your spa return (your gpm numbers look “similar” to mine for both cases).

Since you don’t use your IFCS, I wouldn’t hesitate to take out the guts of that gear system and somehow open (or remove) all the “zone gates/valves” to your popups. Whether or not that is easy probably depends on what system you have. Then I would remeasure/retest to see if it got the gains you expected.