The Easiest Way to UNCLOG your Swimming Pool Skimmer!

[Music] hey guys it's mark from hallmark pool supplies i want to talk to you guys today about how we unclog our skimmer in our in-ground pool why do skimmers get clogged or how do they get clogged the most common way skimmers get clogged is people vacuum their pools without using a vacuum plate so when we vacuum a pool when we come over to our skimmer we want to take our vacuum hose and we want to hook a vacuum plate to it and then the vacuum plate itself will go down as you can see right on top of the basket which is in the skimmer and it goes straight down like so and this is the proper way to vacuum so on a side view what we have have the vacuum plate over the basket so the water can go through and then the trash itself collects in the basket what some people do is they remove the basket they don't use a vacuum plate and they stick the hose directly down into the skimmer this is something you do not want to do because if you have a lot of debris or trash in the pool you are apt to clog your skimmer and so we don't want to have that happen when we vacuum a pool and we're not getting the feed or the suction that we should we want to check a few things and first of all when we vacuum we're going to close our drain and we're going to open the skimmer at this point in time we notice that we're not getting the water flow so in this case we want to make sure that the pump's not clogged so what we can do is we can open the drain we can close the skimmer let's just say that the pump is running great well then that eliminates the pump being clogged because the pump is running on drain but it's not running on the skimmer so we also want to make sure that the skimmer line's not broke fractured or that the vacuum hose that you're vacuuming with doesn't have a split or a crack in it because then we have a suction leak which is going to create a problem with the pump holding prime and one might assume that they're got a clogged skimmer line but really it's just a suction leak so for this video since we're dealing with a clog we're gonna assume everything is good and we do have a clog and i'm gonna show you very simply how we can unclog your skimmer with nothing more than a rag and a garden hose so over the years i have unclogged a lot of skimmers using the garden hose method and it is very effective it does work very well i would say probably 90 percent of the time this will work and i'll show you how we go about unclogging the skimmer first thing we want to do is obviously we've got the pump turned off and we're going to close the drain because right now we're trying to unclog the skimmer and so what we want to do is we want to open our pump and we want to stick the garden hose into the pump we want to get a rag and we want to wrap the rag around the garden hose get a good wrap and then we're going to slide this rag down and we're going to block the opening and we're going to thou turn the water hose on and the water hose now the water itself is going to travel down through the skimmer it can't go this way because we've got the the drain closed and you're going to have to have somebody on the skimmer side so that they can monitor the water flow as it's coming back out through the skimmer and what we want to do is we want to take it from the pump and blow it back to the skimmer we do not want to put the garden hose on the skimmer side and work it back towards the pump because that's the same direction that the clog came in the first place so what we want to do is we want to back it out and go the opposite way so what we're going to do is we're going to hold this here you will feel pressure building up and if so then that means it's definitely clogged and we're just gonna hold it now they do make bladders but in most cases when we have a clog it's very unexpected it could be on a sunday afternoon and one doesn't have a bladder so a rag will work very well we can actually just hold it here and we're just going to let that run so at this point we'll have someone at the other end and what we want to do is we want to look inside the skimmer the basket is removed we can look we can see the water flow we can even put our hand down here and feel the water flow and we obviously should have the same amount of water coming out of the skimmer as what's coming out of the hose but in this case it's not because we have a clog but we can at least feel it and monitor it and see if we see any trash or debris coming out usually this will work and works very effectively on some clogs if they're a little bit tighter it may involve a little bit more work to get it out but we're going to continue to hold this here and we can also pinch the hose and if we pinch the hose and then open it back up let it run a little bit pinch the hose then we can open it back up and that just gives it an extra burst of pressure to hopefully flush that out you do have to communicate with the other person at the other end so that they can tell you if they see a little more water flow or if they feel water flow or if they start to see a little bit more debris coming out and if so then we are slowly but surely working that clog out in some cases you can do this and the clog is out just like that and in some cases you've got to just work with it and it does take a little bit of time but if you just hold this here and pinch and just let that run and open it up and just let it run you will see results it will start to push that clog out and then after doing this for several minutes let's just say it's getting better but it's but it's still clogged and we still have a lot of pressure here and we're trying to hold this then what we can do is we can take our garden hose out we can then put the lid back on the pump and now we can turn the pump back on and let it run and we'll see if we get any more flow than what we had before and let's say it's improved a little bit but it's still clogged then after running this for about a minute or two we're going to turn the pump off remove the lid make sure rag is around the hose real good put our hose back in and slide this down and hold it tight and then turn the water back on and just hold it and let it run and what we're doing by doing this and you may have to do this several times is by pushing and pulling we are actually working the clog back and forth in the pipe and by going back and forth we are loosening the clog so that the clog will eventually blow out so we're going to continue to hold it here and hopefully we have success and the skimmer becomes unclogged and at that point we'll be able to take this out you'll see all the trash coming out of the skimmer if not we can put the lid back on turn the pump back on and we can suck it through because keep in mind by doing this several times back and forth we are working that clog back and forth and you're loosening it up so that it will eventually unlodge the clog so let's just say for an example that you guys have been doing this and you've been doing it for a long time and you've been back and forth and back and forth and it seems to be getting better but it but it doesn't get unclogged then you've obviously got a clog that is a lot worse and it's going to require a little bit more than the garden hose method so there are several things that can be done what can be done is we can actually come down here and cut our plumbing out what we would do is we would open the drain plumb it in disconnect the skimmer we would then come to the filter put our filter on waste hook up to our waste line run a hose and come over here and hook it into the skimmer now you're pulling water from the drain goes through the filter through the waste and through the skimmer and this pump will blow out anything that's in the line and for those of you that don't have a drain line you only have a skimmer line coming in then what we can do is we can still disconnect the plumbing and we can use something like our vacuum hose that we can actually run from the swimming pool up to the pump tie it in now the pump is pulling water through the vacuum hose going through the filter through the waste take a hose and now hook it up to the skimmer and it'll blow it out and that's for those of you that don't have a drain it involves a lot of cutting and a lot of plumbing and then you've got to put everything back but it definitely is one way i would like to try the garden hose first because it's simple it's easy there's no cutting there's no plumbing and like i said before the garden hose method is 90 of the time going to work for you but if you have a very very bad clog cutting the plumbing and hooking it up like this will definitely work you just got to put everything back if you guys don't want to mess with the plumbing or don't want to do that you can hire a pool professional and they can actually snake the skimmer line out but the garden hose method is definitely worth trying because it does work most of the time hopefully you guys found this video to be helpful if you have any questions comment down below or give me a call i'll be glad to help don't forget to hit the like and the subscribe button for future content always remember us at hallmark pool supplies for all your pool needs my name is mark as always i do appreciate you watching and i'll see you guys on the next video [Music]

Channel: Hallmark Pool Supplies

Views: 65,720

Rating: 4.9599333 out of 5

Keywords: swimming pools, in ground pools, skimmer, clogged skimmer, diy, how to, pool pump, pool filter, hallmark pool supplies, pools

Id: gkrm-J0bHLA

Length: 9min 56sec (596 seconds)

Published: Tue May 11 2021