Skimmer injection kit and Pool Fuzer

[dradam]

Two questions:

1) Every few years I have to replace epoxy putty where my skimmer meets the cement side wall of my pool. I see anderson sells an expanding foam epoxy kit that is injected through the skimmer throat to fill all voids around the skimmer. There has been limited talk about it on TFP. Has anyone used this kit with any success or failure? TIA

2) I believe I am chasing a very small leak in my returns. Has anyone used the pipefuze system ? does it work. If anyone has positive experience I have one pipe that splits to three returns. -- how would you set up the system in that case. Again TIA.

 

[kimkats]

Have not heard of those fixes but here is a bump to get more eyes on them to see if anyone else has any knowledge.

 

[dradam]

Bumping my question again

 

[dradam]

Anyone?

 

[dradam]

Answering my own question.... So I tried the Anderson Manufacturing expanding closed cell foam to seal around my skimers.

Waited for a warm day and followed the instructions to the letter. Injected the foam through my skimmer ....... zero, zip, nada. No foam gushing through the cracks , no visible sign of foam-- no expansion on a test area above ground either. (yes water was present). The company was responsive and thought it may have been a batch gone bad because it was shipped in the cold weather. The sent me new foam.

Round two-- Same thing. No sign of foam oozing around the skimmer. A surface test revealed a hint more expansion than the first time.

Company was responsive and checked the batch. Emailed me a photo of the same lot number nicely expanded in a cardboard box.

Their conclusion:
Either my ground temperature was to cold ( despite the fact that I did this on warm days)
or
The cavity around my skimmers is so large that the amount 20x expanding foam is still not enough to fill the cavity around the skimmers.

My next questions went unanswered --- particularly if they might at least give me a price break if I ordered more foam--- no response at all.

So If you try this:
1) You may want to wait until later in the season when ground temp is warmer. Not an option for me - needed the skimmers sealed for start up-back to epoxy putty for me.
2) Consider using a bore scope to get a sense of how big the void is around your skimmers.
3) This product is a slowly expanding closed cell foam-- Other far less expensive options are available used in home insulation-- I might try those in the future.
For the company:
Discuss ground temp in your instructions and videos-- My air temp was good so I went ahead not considering the ground temp.
Discuss the Possibility of failure if the void is too large.

Hope this helps someone considering the same for me it was and expensive failure.