Pool Skimmer Tips That Actually Work

If your pool skimmer feels “lazy” and the surface never quite looks clean, the problem usually isn’t the leaves, it’s the setup. I walk through the most common skimmer performance issues I see in the field and the practical fixes that get debris moving in the right direction again. We even touch on infinity edge pools, where skimmers sometimes get skipped for aesthetics, and why I still think a skimmer plays a vital role in everyday pool care.

We start with circulation basics you can actually control: return jet direction, surface flow patterns, and the dead spots that let debris hover until it gets soaked and sinks. Then we go straight to the big lever for stronger skimmer suction: flow through the filtration system. A dirty filter can quietly kill skimmer pull, while a properly sized, clean cartridge filter, DE filter, or sand filter can make the skimmer come alive. I also cover the weir gate and other skimmer hardware that people don’t notice until it’s missing, stuck, or letting debris slip right back into the pool when the pump shuts off.

From there, we get into the tradeoffs that frustrate a lot of pool owners and pool pros: suction-side cleaners connected at the skimmer, side ports that still steal suction, and variable speed pumps running too low to skim well. I share options to supplement surface cleaning, including solar-powered surface skimmers and the PoolSkim return-jet attachment, plus the small tweaks that make them work better in real pools. If you want a cleaner surface all week, hit play, then subscribe, share the episode with a pool owner, and leave a review with the skimmer problem you want solved next.

We break down why your pool skimmer stops grabbing debris and how small system issues can make a clean pool look messy fast. We walk through the real-world fixes that boost surface skimming, from flow and filtration to weir gates and cleaner setups.
• why skimmers matter for surface debris before it sinks
• return jet direction to reduce dead spots and push debris
• filter cleanliness and filter upgrades to restore flow
• weir gate function and brand-specific missing skimmer parts
• how suction cleaners and low pump speeds reduce skimming power
• add-ons that help, including solar surface cleaners and PoolSkim
• why two skimmers often do not improve performance
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Transcript

Welcome And Skimmer Problems

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you about issues with your pool skimmer. If you're not getting a lot of debris pulled in, or if you notice it's not running correctly, these tips should help you to get the skimmer operational to its fullest ability because the skimmer does serve a really good purpose for your pool, and I'll go over that as well here in today's podcast. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support from me. I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. I've had a couple infinity edge pools over the year years that were built without skimmers. Of course, it's you want to have that look of that infinity edge pool. And besides that, the way the pools sometimes are designed is that all the debris will go over the spillway off the infinity edge into a basin, and that's why these builders don't bother putting a skimmer in. It also is because the water is not going to be flowing towards the skimmer, but flowing over the infinity edge. And I get it, I understand that for aesthetic purposes that looks really nice. But the skimmer, in my opinion, even for an affinity edge pool, which a lot of them do have skimmers by the way, does play a vital role in the pool care. The number one role that it

Why Skimmers Matter On Infinity Pools

SPEAKER_00 1:46

does play is it it really will help with the surface debris of the pool. It's not a really a big thing to have the pool dirty, I guess, but it is nice to have the pool clean or as clean as it can get with the skimmer working, because otherwise that debris starts to get soaked and saturated with water. Then it falls to the bottom, making the pool even messier. So some of that debris can be eliminated on the surface before it falls to the bottom. It's better for the chemistry of the pool, it's better for the look of the pool, and it's really nice to have something that helps remove debris from the pool during the week while you're not there servicing the pool. If you're a homeowner, it's nice to have a cleaner surface. Now the skimmer doesn't really pick up everything in the pool, as you know. If you're a pool owner, you know that there's still going to be leaves that fall to the bottom, and there's still going to be leaves that don't get pulled into the skimmer. There's a lot of different reasons why this may be happening. Now, in a perfect world, the flow going around the pool would be going in a clockwise direction. Let's say the skimmer located in a deep end would pick up all the debris, and there'd be nothing in the pool that would go to the bottom or be stuck on the sides. But in reality, most pools have a lot of dead spots. The return jets don't necessarily push the debris far enough towards the skimmer, and the skimmer itself a lot of times doesn't have that pull to pull the debris into it. Now there are a few things that you can do to increase the likelihood of the pool surface looking pretty good, and that is having the return jets directed in a circular fashion, or if it's a rectangle pool I should say, just have them directed to where the debris is being pushed from the one side to

Return Jets That Push Debris

SPEAKER_00 3:31

the shallow end, from the shallow end onto the other side to the deep end, or wherever the skimmer is located. So there should be a pattern where it goes around clockwise, or I guess counterclockwise would work as well, where the debris is being pushed towards the skimmer, and that gives it a little bit more ability to pick up the debris. But again, most pools aren't designed specifically that way, and it's hard to get the water jets to direct it in the direction it needs to go. The second thing you can do is make sure that the skimmer is optimized for the most power to pull the debris into the skimmer, and this can be done in a couple of ways. The primary thing to make sure is that the pool filter is clean and optimal. Typically, I clean the filters in March or April, and then again in October, September, October. In my area, we clean the filters every six months. Some areas you may clean it every four months. If you have single cartridge filters, you may be doing that every month. But regardless of how often you clean the filters, having the filter working optimally for the flow is really critical. If you have a pool filter that's dirty and you've seen this on your route, let's say you have a D filter, the PSI is at

Clean Filters For Maximum Skimmer Pull

SPEAKER_00 4:47

30 psi, you'll take the skimmer lid off, and of course, there'll be really no flow at all in the skimmer because the filter pressure is too high. Once you backwash that filter, you're gonna see a tremendous flow increase, water being pulled into the skimmer, and this is of course a really great way to make sure that the skimmer is working properly, pulling in debris is having a clean filter to give that pool the maximum flow. A lot of times, if you upgrade your filter, I had a pool that had a 36 square foot D filter, it was an older pool. We put in a 420 square foot clean and clear plus filter, and the flow increased like a thousand percent. It was just amazing. And the amount of debris that was pulled into the skimmer increased by like 90%. So it was a really amazing change. So a clean filter is definitely something that's a factor in the flow of the pool. The second thing you can check is the weir gate. So every skimmer has a weir gate, it's a basically a piece of plastic about eight inches wide, I guess six inches tall, I guess. And this is a flap that actually closes when the skimmer turns. When the pool turns off, this is supposed to go up and kind of close off the skimmer so that when you're using the pool, let's say you're having you're swimming in there and the pool's off, that weird gate is going to go in the closed position and stop debris from going out of the skimmer. A lot of times if the pool doesn't have the weir gate, you're gonna notice a lot of leaf debris right underneath the in the deep end or wherever the skimmer's at, with where it falls back into the pool and sinks to the bottom when the pool turns off. So it's really important to have

Weir Gates And Missing Skimmer Parts

SPEAKER_00 6:29

that weir gate intact and operating. So check the skimmer for that to make sure that it's there and that it actually closes and opens. That actually helps pull in debris by the way, because when it is in the open position, it kind of acts as it kind of acts as something that accelerates the water towards the skimmer. I mean it's not a tremendous amount of increase, but without it, all the debris just goes right past the skimmer without going in. With the weird gate, the debris is actually pulled into the skimmer, and you can actually watch it and see it happening. If you have a Hayward skimmer, you could tell if you have a Hayward skimmer by just taking the skimmer lid off and looking at the lid. And Pentair and Hayward make skimmers, so you'll see an H for Hayward, and you'll see Pentair with their logo on their skimmer baskets or skimmer skimmer lids, I should say, which means that that skimmer is that brand. And then waterway is a popular one here, but the Hayward ones usually are the older skimmers, larger, and they have a large basket in there. And I find that a lot of times when I take over a pool with a Hayward skimmer, they'll have this B37 basket. I think that's the number, B37, and they're actually missing the B38 circular skimmer weir. And these particular skimmers don't actually have weir gates in them, so just be careful that if you have a Hayward skimmer, it actually has the weir as this floating device that goes into the basket. It's kind of a unique skimmer. There's a few here, my route in California, that I've had over the years. And without that B38 circular skimmer that goes in the B37 basket, no debris gets pulled into that skimmer. So just be aware of that fact that a lot of the times that skimmer needs to have that circular weir. Other skimmers should have the weir gates in front of it to help pull debris in. What makes this a little bit of a problem here is that a lot of suction cleaners are connected at the skimmer, which means that the suction is being shared by your suction cleaner as well as the skimmer. Now I did create a basket, it's called the hole in one basket. You can find that on my website, swimmingpolearning.com. If you go down to the bottom, you'll see the hole in one basket on my homepage. And it's just a skimmer basket with a manufactured hole in the bottom where you put the suction cleaner hoses through it and connect it to the skimmer. But the problem is, of course, of course, that helps eliminate debris getting stuck in the regulator valve in the skimmer getting pulled into the pump basket. But the main problem with a suction cleaner connected at the skimmer is that you're gonna lose a lot of the skimming power. You're also going to

When Cleaners Steal Skimmer Suction

SPEAKER_00 9:03

prop the weird gate open all the time, which means debris will fall back in the pool when the pool turns off. So it is a little problematic when you have a cleaner connected at the skimmer because the surface skimming is gonna be affected as well as the weird gate operation. To be honest, the best setup that I I like, which is not popular in my area of California, is a pressure side cleaner with its own booster pump, and then you have the skimmer operating at full capacity, getting the leaf debris with the Polaris cleaner, Polaris 280 on the bottom, getting a leaf debris off the pool. And ideally that's that's the optimal pool configuration that I found. But these pressure cleaners are not popular in my area, and so a lot of times you're gonna have a suction cleaner sharing the power of the skimmer either at the skimmer itself or at a side port. Even if you have the cleaner at the side port, you're still diverting a lot of the suction that would go to the skimmer for that automatic cleaner to move. And then, of course, to make matters even worse, is the variable speed pumps that are working at low to medium speeds out there and not really circulating the pool and pulling the debris into the skimmer. So there's a lot of factors working against the skimmer, even if you have it configured with the weird gate, with the with the filter clean, and with the suction going to it, if you have the main drain off and all the suction going to the skimmer with a suction cleaner connected at the skimmer or side port, you are you are reducing the flow right there as well. So it's really not optimal, but it's kind of how things are set up. And to get a skimmer working completely, you have to have no cleaner in the pool and have everything set up to pull it in. My favorite device for the skimmer that no longer exists for whatever reason. I'm not sure if the company was run correctly, which I don't think it was, otherwise, it'd still be in business. Was a Skim Doctor 2.0. This was a really nice attachment that goes on top of the skimmer basket that really accelerated the skimmer and allowed it to pull in a lot of water, even with a suction cleaner connected to the side port or a variable speed pump, and we just accelerate the water flow. But unfortunately, a company seems to be out of business and that product is gone. The closest thing that I found to it is a product on Amazon called the Cyclone 6 Inch, and this is a basically a thing you put on top the skimmer basket, it kind of helps accelerate the flow, but it's nowhere near what the Skim Doctor 2.0 was doing at that point. Unfortunately, products like that go up go on go out of business or company go out of business and a good product is lost to the industry. What you can do to supplement your skimmer. So if you have a suction cleaner working in the pool and you really don't like all the surface debris on there, by the way, if you get a bouncing type cleaner like the G3 by Zodiac or the Ranger, I guess I would say creepy crawly, but they're not making those anymore. The bouncing of that cleaner actually knocks debris down to the bottom of the pool. So the reason why it's bouncing, yes, it's bouncing because that's kind of how it moves across the pool. But the secondary effect of the bouncing is that debris will actually be knocked down to the bottom and be vacuumed out. So those bouncing cleaners are actually pretty good of eliminating surface leaf debris. You'll notice if you have these on your pool route that there's not a lot of debris on the surface, and that's because the bouncing will actually knock them down to the bottom. But if you have a geared

Solar Surface Cleaners And PoolSkim

SPEAKER_00 12:31

cleaner, which is like most of the pools now, you know, the Atlas or the Max Cleaner by Polaris or the pool cleaner by Hayward, they don't bounce. And so the leaves don't go down to the bottom. And the problem is they stay on the surface, and with less suction, they don't get pulled into the skimmer. So there are things you can do to supplement your skimmer. The first thing I would recommend is a solar power surface cleaner. Now, the first problem you're going to run into are the cleaner hoses because they'll hit the cleaner hoses and then they're not going to have the full coverage of the pool. That's really easily solved because you can just get three hose weights and put them on the cleaner hoses in strategic positions. I put one usually right before the canister, another one a few hose lengths down, and then one more where it's coming out of the water, but it's still under the water, and that sinks it down. So this will sink the hose down about six inches or ten inches, and then the surface cleaner can actually clean the complete surface of the pool. So having a suction cleaner in there with one of these solar surface cleaners is not a huge drawback with the hose weights on there. I think the beta still makes the best solar surface cleaner, and that those are pretty reliable and effective. So that's a great way to supplement the skimmer is by having the solar surface cleaner in the pool. While the pool's running or when the pool's off is gonna work because it runs off of solar power and it has a battery, and it pretty much will clean the pool day and night during the season. Another option would be the pool skim, and this is the device that connects a return jet and creates a secondary skimmer. Highly, highly effective with pools that have a lot of debris in them. If the skimmer baskets being filled up midweek or you know, every few days you're emptying that basket out, you're probably a good candidate for either a solar surface cleaner or the pool skim, which is a great device also to get the leaf debris out and kind of relieve the skimmer of that debris. Whatever you can do to help remove the debris before it gets to the skimmer is really helpful. And as the skimmer basket gets filled up with debris, the amount of suction and the amount of debris it picks up diminishes kind of because it's not the water's not flowing as it used to flow as it starts to get filled up. And you'll notice that if you do have a pool that has a lot of debris, by midweek when the skimmer basket is halfway filled, the skimmer is not as effective. What about having two skimmers in your pool? A lot of pools are built with two skimmers because the thought is having two skimmers is going to maximize the skimming ability and it's going to provide you double the capacity. I found that pools with two skimmers aren't really any better. In fact, sometimes they're worse because one skimmer will have more power than the other. They're really not always equalized, and to me, I don't really see the point of having two skimmers, especially if one of them is always weaker, it doesn't work as effectively. Granted, I've I have a pool, I had a pool that had two skimmers that was highly effective. They were both in a deep end, and this pool did get a lot of debris, but they had two separate filters for each of the skimmers, so it was one of those things where it was on it was it was actually plumbed in correctly to where both skimmers

Two Skimmers And Real World Fixes

SPEAKER_00 15:49

had full power. It was kind of a pain to charge a D filter because I had to turn one line off. It was and to get the other filter to have the D, it was complicated, but it was plumbed into where each skimmer had their own actual filtration system, which was nice to have because they both had the full power. But I always find that one skimmer is weaker than the other in a lot of cases, and it's not super effective, and it's a pain to if you want to turn one skimmer off, if there's no valve there to turn it off, and it's something that a lot of people think is going to maximize our skimming ability, but I really don't think it makes a huge difference. In my opinion, what maximizes the skimming in the pool is basically having a clean filter, the weird gate, and having the return jets pointed towards the surface to push the debris towards the skimmer. But as I mentioned, there are other things you can do. You can get the solar surface cleaners, you can get the pool skim, you can also trim the trees around the pool, whatever you can to reduce the leaf debris to less and leaf to lessen the leaf debris getting in the pool really does help the skimmer. And of course, skimming the pool with the leaf rate as much as you can to get debris out also helps. But really, in reality, there's not going to be there's not a perfect system to get the leaves into the skimmer and out of the pool. There's gonna be leaves falling to the bottom, and that's why it's really important to have a automatic cleaner in the pool to get those leaves that fall to the bottom so that the pool has that clean swim ready look all week long. And if there's one or two leaves on the side, not a big deal. It's just one of those things where the skimmer is a really important component, but rarely are you gonna find a pool where the skimmer is operating at its full potential. There's been a few that I've found where the pool skimmers are great. In fact, one of my oldest pools that I used to have had this gigantic manhole cover skimmer. It was like the literally the size of a manhole, and in there was this giant basket. I don't even know if you can get a replacement for it, but a lot of the old skimmers have like a little tether ball on top. If you have an old pool, you'll see it. This it's weird why they would do that, but I've had a pool before with a really old skimmer, and it was a threaded tether ball type thing that goes on there to catch the debris. And my thought was this is gonna get clogged up instantly, and it did get clogged up instantly every week. Then there were the older pools with the tiny little baskets or like you know, square baskets that are the size of your hand. Really ineffective as well. But this one had this gigantic basket in there, and the cover, I don't even know what kind of skimmer it was. The lid was like the size of a manhole cover, but I remember it because it was one of the only skimmers that I thought was pretty effective out there. If you're looking for other podcasts, you can find those by going to my website, SonyCalllearning.com, on the banner. There's a podcast icon. Click on that, and that'll be a drop domain over 1900 podcasts if you're listening to. And if you're interested in the coaching program that I offer, you can learn more at PoolGuyCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have you rest of your week and God bless.