Skimmer Installed Too Close To Upright

by Alice
(Silver Creek, GA, USA)

The above ground pool came with the house that I bought, and I've had it for about three or four years now. The biggest problem I've had with it is that whoever installed the pool placed the skimmer hole right up against an upright.

We could only fill the pool up to about the middle of the skimmer to avoid leakage on the outside of the skimmer basket.

This year we replaced the liner and that went great! --Except that we are having issues getting the skimmer basket back on because it's so close to the upright! From what we can tell, the screws that we put through the skimmer plate on the left side feel like they're catching and screwing into the skimmer basket, but are actually just catching on the side of the upright.

Any advice would help! We thought about squeezing the upright in order to get the screws to reach the actual skimmer basket, or even using a silicone to seal up what we can't get to screw closed. Any tips? Thanks!

Hi Alice

I can just about guarantee silicone will not help any. What I would do is trim the upright out of the way of the skimmer.

I would remove the bottom screws on the upright and pull it out from the skimmer. There is a groove just out of the way of the skimmer. You could run a razor knife down the groove to score it real good. Then you would just need to snip in an inch or so above and below the skimmer with tin snips. The piece you want to remove could be bent back and forth until it snaps off.

A couple of carpenters furniture building clamps could be used above and below the skimmer to squeeze it out of the way. This would hold it back enough to properly install the skimmer.

Skimmers are hard enough to install without having them up against an upright, so yes, get that thing out of the way.