Leaves

[P00LNerd]

My skimmer gets totally jammed up with leaves this time of year, and it’s just not possible to keep up with it on windy days. I can empty it several times per day, but it will still jam up overnight. I've had the standard basket get sucked down inside the skimmer housing a few times. Broke a few baskets, thankfully never the skimmer itself.

I switched to a special basket with a funnel in the center, that still lets some water thru when the thing fills with leaves, but even that can get pretty jammed up and hard to withdraw with overnight leaf load. Better, not great, and we could never leave town with this solution in place.

But our water is still almost 80F, way too warm to close. Don’t want to soft-close with our cover either, because that just creates a soupy leaf mess atop the cover.

Was thinking a leaf net over the pool could work, assuming some leaves around perimeter could just be blown off, and the rest pulled off by rolling up the mesh cover. Then I came across this while searching Amazon:

Amazon.com

Any good? Looks to me like something that could buy me hours, never days, but might be worth adding to the arsenal.

Other ideas?

 

[ajw22]

Skimmer Guards - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[P00LNerd]

Looks like that design just reject the leaves, so they eventually sink to the bottom? Maybe a good option for going out of town, but otherwise the opposite of what I think most would want. We want to capture the leaves while they're on the surface, to avoid having to scrape the off the bottom.

 

[maxBR]

Grab a Betta skimmer bot? It's kept so many leaves out of my skimmer basket

 

[1poolman1]

Looks like that design just reject the leaves, so they eventually sink to the bottom? Maybe a good option for going out of town, but otherwise the opposite of what I think most would want. We want to capture the leaves while they're on the surface, to avoid having to scrape the off the bottom.

If there are too many leaves for a skimmer basket, letting them sink and then using something like this leaf vac works well. This one had brushes instead of wheels for vinyl pools.
Its just an example of what is available:

https://www.amazon.com/Swimline-Blue-Wave-Leaf-Bagger/dp/B000MOIX3A/ref=sr_1_6?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.a36IuMSZpRZi9CARHxT4vgcolKuFn9ZAgoD2sM27TVOtwdtI5xqE-So-5ahjSUh1KjLw-f1-I3uWqGq04sxnHaJci6MQG5i1ngqnFhCeu-XWkIyhhWcVDGtilXgSI39_nJ3jvl1-xIvY-8ZL8q7uZ7nwkx9TYP8fiBWNXrzO3e0Znqa6e2-NCE760Nqedxc8fPcDrifhMMqKwxkGDKeL8Lu9i1pdqMCGgzOxsPlJes0.wrfnHBwH-tKbTy5y7Ex-LROZoo1ww_Yel6XI9-cIthw&dib_tag=se&keywords=pool%2Bleaf%2Bvacuum&qid=1727119579&sr=8-6&th=1

 

[P00LNerd]

Grab a Betta skimmer bot? It's kept so many leaves out of my skimmer basket

I like it! That might be a good option for keeping the pool open during leaf or pollen fall (maybe good for spring use). However, I've been convinced to just get the cover on the pool this week, and leave the pumps and chlorinator running under the cover until it's cool enough to shut down. That should eliminate our immediate problem.

Someone suggested putting a net atop the cover, for easy leaf removal, which I think I will do. Just need to find a good net for that. Pool is 18 x 33 ft. freeform + steps. Probably looking for a 23 x 38 or larger net cover, so I can use it all winter while water level is lowered 1.5'.