this thing here no it's not a periscope from a submarine although it very well could be this
is the Hayward skimmer this is the magical box that you put in your pool that is supposed to
get rid of all your bugs debris junk and everything so much easier and make your
life more enjoyable guaranteed happiness I think I saw it somewhere on the box
okay if you're not familiar with what a skimmer is and you're wondering why in the world we're
actually doing this why are we buying this a skimmer is a device that changes where your pool
filter draws in the water to filter it from below the surface at some little portholes to a box that
can reside above the surface and below and get things off the top of the water it kind of skims
the top of the surface what this allows you to do is to draw in the suction from your pool into this
box and in here there is a little basket you put in with a mesh or a filter basket of sort and it
collects large debris this is supposed to save you a ton of time on pool maintenance supposed
to keep your pool cleaner be a more enjoyable process overall it is one thing you can add to
your pool to reduce the amount of work you have to do to maintain and keep your pool looking great
at least that's how it's advertised and that's why we bought it but we won't know until we put
this in so let's go ahead and go over the steps on installing this and actually put it on the
pool there are a lot of different components in the box if you get this exact same kit but what
we're going to start off with are four main things you have the rectangle cut out this is what goes
inside the pool you have the gasket itself you have your Hardware bag the screws used to attach
everything to and then of course you have the actual skimmer housing itself this is the big
Behemoth box of magic that goes on the outside of your pool I'm no skimmerologist but from what
I have read and understand the ideal water level for your skimmer is in the middle you don't want
it below the skimmer it won't work you don't want it above the skimmer it'll pour out the
back you want it somewhere in the middle I've looked at our pool and we don't have a ton of
wiggle room as far as the water level and how far up I can take the skimmer what this is probably
going to do is lower our maximum water height a little bit from where we like to have it or
where the pool can absolutely be but it's going to prevent me from doing the really risky thing
of installing my gasket right at the seam of the top of our pool I would much rather lose an inch
or so maybe of pool water and not destroy the pool so your mileage may vary depending on the design
of your pool the style the height and everything just know we're trying to get this mounted as
high as possible until we can retain the water depth as deep as possible all right let's talk
about location the ideal location for a skimmer is downwind where your prevailing winds blow that way
put it down there however that's going to directly conflict with our pool deck we're going to build
so I can't put it there what I'm going to do instead is put it right here probably in that
area right where the default intake or return I don't the manual says it's weird where the water
comes out of the pool and goes to the filter in that area I thought about putting it on that end
of the pool but that's going to extend the links and piping I needed for filtration and then I
also didn't want to really create any problems my mindset says Sam the people who designed the pool
probably know best they have it going into the pool there after it's being filtered they have it
coming out of the pool here to be filtered don't try and get smart don't deviate from that too much
just put it here it's not going to be a way of that new pool deck you got to build it should be
fine and it won't make you hopefully have to go buy a whole bunch of material from the store to
plumb this pipe it back up together and so that you and your family can enjoy the pool again so
right here it is all right guys you are currently in the pool hopefully the water is fine not too
cold for you I'm going to try and do this from the outside as much as possible but I have Elijah
my son in here and he is helping as needed in the water Arena so we're going to put this right here
right up as close to the top of the seam as we can get without interfering with it earlier I talked
about we wished it could be higher for best water location but that would have put it somewhere up
in this area and that's just ludicrous land so we're going to put it right here but it right up
to the bottom where this gray seam overlaps and attaches to the blue and we should be good there
out of the pool guys sorry I'm actually going to do this from the outside I had you guys in
the pool a second ago but I think I'll be able to do this fine right here because this seam matches
the inside that should be good just doing the outline and cutting it from the outside
we have our traced our outline this is what we need to cut out and the
thing for me to remember I'm cutting on the outside of this Sharpie line
because I traced it from the inside of that piece I'm going to very very
carefully use my razor blade make my cuts and hope and pray I don't mess things up
thank you
that was incredibly way too easy to do I've seen some other people
say these liners are super super tough maybe it's because I had a
brand new knife blade in there but that was really easy so be very very careful
now we're going to take our gasket it does open up this way we're going to fish it in here
in and around and see that it works perfectly covers everything and nothing is wrong
awesome wonderful the next thing is to do is poke yourself some pilot holes in these so you can more
easily push the screws through they give you these are some nice thick stainless steel screws but
they're also not pointed on the ends so they're not going to be self-piercing through these
another thing to note is that the number of holes in this gasket do not correlate with the number
of holes in your plate so if you need to use a Sharpie make you some dots you've got three on the
top and the bottom two on the left and the right don't poke unnecessary holes if you can help it
so let's go ahead and Mark those with the Sharpie I'm gonna use my knife poke tiny little
starter holes and then we'll start screwing this thing together from the inside towards the out
thank you
I need you to push the screwdriver and turn it please yep
it's one of those bugs that tells you it's super hot
all right that's good you got a screwdriver keep a hold of it
okay bottom left all right now let's do this one there we go
here we go okay
all right two more here we go all right our gasket's in place our inner pieces on all the
screws been pushed through next thing to do is put this on but do not forget this step put your
flapper in first otherwise you will not get this in there so make sure your flapper gets installed
then you put it together tighten it down by hand with a screwdriver don't use a drill don't use a
power tool you don't want to strip out the plastic do it by hand so you know how far you're going
foreign
it's the next day we have the skimmer all tightened down here we splash some water
around it it looks like we're good no water leaks what we're going to be doing next is
working on Plumbing the skimmer up ultimately attaching it to the pump but also keeping our
existing Outlets or inlets remember they call it something weird in the manual the
other hoses put those into play as well and still add control whether or not we choose to use them
foreign guys I've got all my stuff together I have my ducks in a row and so let me tell you
who's who in the game of pool retrofit ology so on the skimmer itself I threaded in an inch
and a half PVC to Mill thread adapter on the bottom of it this inch and a half shutoff valve
is going to slip right in and get glued into place the other side I have a short section
of inch and a half PVC glued in here from there it's going to attach to a sanitary tee
what this T is going to allow me to do is put some of these slip fit female adapters one goes here
one goes on the bottom because what that then lets me do is put these nice little adapters
you can buy from inch and a half npt pipe thread to the 40 millimeter Intex hose they screw right
in here on the left and on the bottom and that's going to allow me to take my existing return lines
attach it right here and then this one will go from all of this straight down to the filter I'm
not going to do a full PVC conversion I looked at it I kind of weighed the pros and cons and this is
what I chose obviously that's what I'm showing you guys but this allows me to use very minimal parts
for this conversion so as far as we're looking at one two three four five six different things plus
the two fittings that come as a kit that's not bad so this is what I'm going to be doing yes
we're still using the flex hose but that's okay it should do fine it was doing great and I don't
think there's any problems otherwise usually when people convert their Intex Pools to PVC the rigid
PVC they're looking for something that's more robust if you hit it with a string trimmer or
if it gets knocked around or beat around we don't really have that problem because all this stuff
is here and while it may at first look like it's right front up and Center this is an area that
we're not going to get to we have our mini split system our propane tanks for our fireplace in the
house and then this kind of makes of a utilitarian area that we don't have a lot of foot traffic with
so I think this is going to good for us that being said let's take all of our parts let's glue what
needs to be glued let's Teflon tape what needs to be Teflon and put this thing back together
all right hose adapter on the right
hose adapter on the bottom
small little piece of inch and a half PVC for the top
so this is everything glued together except for this one piece this is going to go into
this guy that's already been Teflon taped and screwed into the skimmer
glue this up and then the gray adapters go on the left side the bottom side and we're
ready to hook things back up it's really really quick and easy to do
Teflon tape is not required on these per se because your o-ring is really what should
be doing all the sealing but hey I've got it it's not going to hurt anything so I added it into this
I'd take it back Teflon tape you got to do it because otherwise
it doesn't go far enough for the O-ring to seat in
I mean maybe if you're stronger than me but let's not be crazy
guys our heart Plumbing is all done next thing to do is put the original hose apparatus and
shut off valve back in place again something we're choosing to do I also see a lot of other people do
it too so I'm just kind of playing copycat what I'm going to do is try and Route this a little
more neatly and probably take some zip ties and zip tie it to one of the pool legs just to make
things a little bit cleaner I've always hated how it was just literally flopping around down here
[ __ ]
[Music]
foreign
truck to our two boys when they hear the water hose running they probably are going to know
that Dad is done messing with the pool it's filling back up and that means they can get
in and help it fill up somehow by being inside playing I think that's all right though let's
go ahead and let it fill up get back up to the proper level then we'll get that skimmer going
see it in action and hey enjoy all the bugs being pulled into their basket of Oblivion
and not just floating around there for us to clamp the next day the pool has all filled
filled there's anything in it because we cleaned it while we were working on this so I want to let
it sit overnight usually by the mornings we wake up to a lot of june beetles and bugs and people
just kind of hanging out that we didn't invite to swim so let's see how it does tomorrow let's see
how many bugs are on the surface but see how many are inside that skimmer box see you then
foreign
so it's the next morning and as you guys see there we did catch a handful of bugs and stuff now two
things one the pump did not run all night it was set to automatically run its normal cycle and it
turned off sometime in the middle of the night also we had a pretty big thunderstorm come through
which to add those two together and I'm not upset that there is right at the same number of bugs in
the skimmer box as there is floating in the pool that's okay obviously the skimmer does work there
are bugs in there as I turn the valves on the extra little inlets over here and reduce the water
flow I can tell the difference so it is doing its job so it's definitely safe to say this is not a
100 percent foolproof item this will not get rid of all your bugs probably but you know what it
does make a big difference on how many are in the pool but also it seems to not starve the filter
for water flow there is a noticeable difference in the output over there out of the filter going back
into the pool as far as water flow water volume pressure and everything it's a lot stronger now
with the Hayward skimmer installed so I definitely think that the default manufacturer setup is kind
of restrictive on your water flow at least that's my opinion all in all it was an easy
thing to install it is catching some bugs so it's doing the job and you know what it adds a little
bit more ability for filtration and that to me is a win hopefully you guys enjoyed this video you
enjoyed getting to see some more pool stuff if you like this stick around because the next project
for us on our Channel with our swimming pool will be replacing Mr sketchy the ladder with a custom
pool deck right here going from here attaching to the deck on the back of our home and making a much
more safe and secure setup by the way thanks for watching leave us a comment down below if you've
got any questions or want to and otherwise take care we'll see you next time on the homestead