Hello. Thanks in advance for any help.
I just realized that I posted in the Introduce Yourself section with my other thread. So, I will post it again here because we need help with our skimmer. This is what I posted in the other thread.
"Hello all.
We have an 18' above ground Intex inflatable pool. This is the second one we have had in about 8 seasons. We upgraded long ago to the 2500gph pump and it helped a whole lot. We had a skimmer on the old one and everything worked fine. It finally played out for some reason. I think a part broke. So, we bought another Intex skimmer just like it. We also had to replace the pump a couple of seasons ago when we replaced the pool. So, now the setup is a new 18' pool, new 2500 gph pump and a new skimmer. All the same stuff but new. (It is now about two seasons old but the skimmer issue happened a while back and we have been without one since.)
We hooked the skimmer up as before and it caused the pump to make a terrible sucking in sound like when someone is having a coughing spasm and cannot breathe well. The pump sounded like it was straining horribly. We unhooked it all and I asked the seller on Ebay about it. I was greeted with "that's an Intex problem so call them thing and no chance of a refund." We called Intex and got a poor girl that barely spoke good English. We couldn't understand her and she couldn't understand us so we finally gave up. So, we lost about $30 on that skimmer.
We still have it. It is sitting in the shed. I saw this website and thought I would ask y'all if y'all have any ideas about it. We bought a new pool kit and it included a flow reduction adapter that came with a picture of a skimmer but no real instructions. It made me think to post this thread. What does that do and will it help this problem? Thank you!"
I looked around and I thought maybe we had figured out the problem but it was short lived. Here are those two posts:
"I think we got it fixed today. Took a little doing because our pool was already up and going and filled with water. The connectors had stuck together too so it was fun trying to get them apart to hook the skimmer up. I found another place where others had said their skimmers were being pushed up at an angle and remembered something like that happening to ours. So, we attached it and when the pump was turned on the skimmer rose at an angle and was not pulling the water through. We did as those others had suggested and weighted down the bucket part leaving the hole clear of course. (We used rocks and a 2.5lb barbell weight.) Once we got the height adjusted right it did just fine. The surface of the water was much cleaner after only a little while of it running. Thank y'all for the help. Hope this helps anyone who may be having the same issue."
and
"Looks that only worked for the other day. We didn't run the pump yesterday but turned it on again today. It once again started sucking air (after having worked well two days ok) but it didn't sound as bad. We can hear the air though and air bubbles are coming out the other side where the water flows back into the pool. We have tried the weights thing and even switched for the old skimmer. Seems that the only thing wrong with our old one may have been the hose. But, it continued to bring in air. The weights kept the barrel part down but the blue part floats to the surface. We cannot figure out why air is coming in that way. Please help with any ideas. We are about to go back to no skimmer at all sadly. Thanks."
The responses I got were that the pump is sucking air. But as you can see we don't know why it is doing it. It worked fine after putting the weights in on Tuesday but today it went back to doing it again. The barrel part had the weights and is staying down. The blue part sucks bugs and stuff in very well but air is going into the pump. Even though it was quieter we could see the air bubbles and hear the air going through so we shut it off.
Please help if y'all have any ideas. Thank you.
I just realized that I posted in the Introduce Yourself section with my other thread. So, I will post it again here because we need help with our skimmer. This is what I posted in the other thread.
"Hello all.
We have an 18' above ground Intex inflatable pool. This is the second one we have had in about 8 seasons. We upgraded long ago to the 2500gph pump and it helped a whole lot. We had a skimmer on the old one and everything worked fine. It finally played out for some reason. I think a part broke. So, we bought another Intex skimmer just like it. We also had to replace the pump a couple of seasons ago when we replaced the pool. So, now the setup is a new 18' pool, new 2500 gph pump and a new skimmer. All the same stuff but new. (It is now about two seasons old but the skimmer issue happened a while back and we have been without one since.)
We hooked the skimmer up as before and it caused the pump to make a terrible sucking in sound like when someone is having a coughing spasm and cannot breathe well. The pump sounded like it was straining horribly. We unhooked it all and I asked the seller on Ebay about it. I was greeted with "that's an Intex problem so call them thing and no chance of a refund." We called Intex and got a poor girl that barely spoke good English. We couldn't understand her and she couldn't understand us so we finally gave up. So, we lost about $30 on that skimmer.
We still have it. It is sitting in the shed. I saw this website and thought I would ask y'all if y'all have any ideas about it. We bought a new pool kit and it included a flow reduction adapter that came with a picture of a skimmer but no real instructions. It made me think to post this thread. What does that do and will it help this problem? Thank you!"
I looked around and I thought maybe we had figured out the problem but it was short lived. Here are those two posts:
"I think we got it fixed today. Took a little doing because our pool was already up and going and filled with water. The connectors had stuck together too so it was fun trying to get them apart to hook the skimmer up. I found another place where others had said their skimmers were being pushed up at an angle and remembered something like that happening to ours. So, we attached it and when the pump was turned on the skimmer rose at an angle and was not pulling the water through. We did as those others had suggested and weighted down the bucket part leaving the hole clear of course. (We used rocks and a 2.5lb barbell weight.) Once we got the height adjusted right it did just fine. The surface of the water was much cleaner after only a little while of it running. Thank y'all for the help. Hope this helps anyone who may be having the same issue."
and
"Looks that only worked for the other day. We didn't run the pump yesterday but turned it on again today. It once again started sucking air (after having worked well two days ok) but it didn't sound as bad. We can hear the air though and air bubbles are coming out the other side where the water flows back into the pool. We have tried the weights thing and even switched for the old skimmer. Seems that the only thing wrong with our old one may have been the hose. But, it continued to bring in air. The weights kept the barrel part down but the blue part floats to the surface. We cannot figure out why air is coming in that way. Please help with any ideas. We are about to go back to no skimmer at all sadly. Thanks."
The responses I got were that the pump is sucking air. But as you can see we don't know why it is doing it. It worked fine after putting the weights in on Tuesday but today it went back to doing it again. The barrel part had the weights and is staying down. The blue part sucks bugs and stuff in very well but air is going into the pump. Even though it was quieter we could see the air bubbles and hear the air going through so we shut it off.
Please help if y'all have any ideas. Thank you.
