Fall has landed in your pool

Autumn breezes and warm fall days. Beautiful to look at, but if your pool is surrounded by lots of deciduous trees – it can also make a lot of work to keep the pool clean.

I consider myself an expert in pool leaf removal, having personally removed over a million floating and sunken leaves, by my own estimation.

Here’s how to reduce the work, and get the leaves out of your pool with less effort.

Optimize the Skimmer Flow

Adjust the skimmers so that they are pulling at their strongest. You may want to close or nearly close the main drain valve to increase skimmer suction.

Check to make sure that skimmer weirs? are in place. These help to speed the flow of water into the skimmer, and help to lock leaves inside the skimmer when the pump shuts off.

Skim it attaches easily to most in-ground and aboveground pool skimmers, an arm that reaches out and grabs leaves passing by, directing them into the skimmer. One of our best sellers, it can increase your skimmer performance, and the spring loaded design installs or removes in seconds without any tools.

Optimize the Return Flow

A circular flow of water around the pool helps to gently guide floating leaves in front of the skimmer, helping to trap them before they sink.

Use eyeball fittings, or 90 degree wall fittings on the returns, to direct the water flow from all returns, in the same direction of flow.

Aim the wall fittings slightly towards the surface, to get a small amount of surface action or ripple in the water.

Extreme Leaf Removal Tools

Leaf Gulper: When the leaves are so deep that they are clogging up the vacuum head or you need to empty the basket every 5 minutes, the Leaf Gulper is the answer.

Modeled after the Jandy Leaf Master, it works with the pressure from your garden hose, the better the hose pressure, the better and faster it will vacuum.

Leaf Rakes: Still using the dip ‘n flip type of pool skim net? For heavy pool leaf problems, there is no tool better suited than a good Leaf Rake. For surface work, you can drag it behind you at the tile line, or use a push and pull method across the pool surface, from side to side.

Leaf Rakes are also great for scooping leaves off of the floor. When you get really good at it, you can move faster than with a Leaf Gulper. Push the net slowly across the floor bouncing just slightly to create a small current. Do a quick flip turn and hard pull back when you reach the end of your pole, or the other side of the pool.

Skimming leaves can put a strain on lower back muscles when the pole is fully extended. Introducing the Swivel Skim Elite, the floating and swiveling leaf rake that removes the force of gravity, and does a quick swivel flip with a flick of the wrist.

Leaf Catchers: Catching the leaves before they fall into the pool – now that’s genius! Leaf catchers are commonly used to go over top of a solid pool cover, and then removed (with all of the leaves) once                                        the leaves have fallen.

Leaf Catchers also be used without a cover, as a leaf guard during autumn. Use the grommets in the corners to pull the Leaf Catcher tight over the pool, so that leaves stay dry, and can blow off the cover.

Leaf Canisters: If you are vacuuming a lot of leaves in through the skimmer, you know how quickly the pump basket can fill up. You can use a Skimmer Vac Adapter, and vacuum into the skimmer basket instead, which is much larger.

For those really big jobs however, the skimmer basket is even too small. With the Hayward Leaf Canister connected to your vacuum hose, you can vacuum for longer without stopping. The design allows for consistent suction, even when the canister is full of leaves.

Leaf Baskets: Not just any skimmer basket, but a SkimPro skimmer basket with a tower design that allows water flow to continue even when the basket is jammed full.

If you ever had a skimmer basket break due to getting clogged with leaves, you’ll appreciate the smart design. The tower also functions as a handy handle to lift the basket out easily, even with strong suction skimmers.

Extreme Leaf Removal Tips

• Start by skimming around the edge 2-3 times, then move inward.
• Use a Leaf Gulper or Leaf Rakes to dredge leaves from the floor.
• Clean off the pool deck with a blower before starting.
• Place a few tall trash cans on deck to dump leaves.

Pool Stains from Leaves

After correcting a leaf overload problem, plastered pools may be stained from the tannins in the leaves. Balancing the water and shocking the pool will usually remove leaf stains. Extreme leaf stains in a plastered pool may require acid washing to see any real removal success.

www.bluelagoonspoolservice.com