I have an in ground spa, just refinished and I had the concrete resealed around the skimmer box as it was leaking last year. As I have my pool working for the season, I noticed that it is still leaking. Further investigation revealed that the water level is hitting the top of the skimmer itself, where the skimmer collar meets the main body. I had tried to seal this joint with pool putty but failed. I believe water seeps out at the joint and is replaced by the autofill, leading to dilution of my pool chemicals (significantly salt for the chlorinator).
The obvious fix would be to set the autofill to a lower level, but this is not practical the way the skimmer was installed. There is only about 1 inch of room between the water level necessary to feed the suction line/basket/pump and the level that is too high and causes overflow (and with one inch of clearance, it gets exceeded just from the splashing and turbulence when the jets and blower run). I believe the problem is that the skimmer box is too low relative to the pool (or it was installed at an angle). Water slopes downward from the pool to get into the skimmer. Hopefully this picture shows the issue (photo from last year before resurfacing). The skimmer is a Hayward 1080 and the collar is the 1082.
If I could seal the joint with the collar, I would effectively make the skimmer area higher and solve my problem. Short of this, I am not sure what to do to correct. I had contemplating replacing the skimmer when the spa was resurfaced, but the job was forgotten along the way.
The obvious fix would be to set the autofill to a lower level, but this is not practical the way the skimmer was installed. There is only about 1 inch of room between the water level necessary to feed the suction line/basket/pump and the level that is too high and causes overflow (and with one inch of clearance, it gets exceeded just from the splashing and turbulence when the jets and blower run). I believe the problem is that the skimmer box is too low relative to the pool (or it was installed at an angle). Water slopes downward from the pool to get into the skimmer. Hopefully this picture shows the issue (photo from last year before resurfacing). The skimmer is a Hayward 1080 and the collar is the 1082.
If I could seal the joint with the collar, I would effectively make the skimmer area higher and solve my problem. Short of this, I am not sure what to do to correct. I had contemplating replacing the skimmer when the spa was resurfaced, but the job was forgotten along the way.
