What Is a Pool Skimmer Flap and Does It Make a Difference? Though some pool owners may have no use or need for this part of their pool’s filtration system, recognizing its purpose can help you determine if it’s useful for the maintenance of your pool. In this blog, we will discuss what a skimmer flap is and how the skimmer flap works along with other cleaning equipment such as robot pool cleaner.
What is a Pool Skimmer Flap?
The flap is a small, typically flexible piece within your pool’s skimmer. Its function is to control how much water and debris enters the skimmer. This flap stops oversized debris from entering the skimmer so that it can efficiently catch smaller particles and leaves without clogging. It can also help develop a suction impact, boosting the purification unit’s effectiveness.
What is the Importance of a Pool Skimmer Flapper?
Although skimmer flaps are a small part of your pool system, they play a crucial role in keeping your water clean. Here are some reasons it’s deemed necessary:
Higher Filtration Efficiency: The flap ensures that debris goes to the skimmer without blocking the system. This provides a smoother pass of water through your tank, which leads to more controlled filtration.
Prevents Clogging: The flap catches larger debris, preventing the skimmer basket from clogging up with leaves, branches, or other large items. This ensures the filtration system works properly.
Enhanced Suction: Certain skimmer flaps assist in creating a vacuum effect, which can pull more water as well as debris into the skimmer basket, thus enhancing the suction and filtration capability.
Should You Have a Skimmer Flap With a Robot Pool Cleaner?
However, having a pool skimmer flap is still useful, even with an advanced robot pool cleaner – such as the Beatbot AquaSense or Beatbot iSkim Ultra. While a swimming pool robot cleaner excels at keeping the pool’s floor, walls, and even the waterline clean, it cannot completely substitute for the filtration system. Operating in conjunction with the skimmer, and pool vacuum robot, the robot pool keeps your pool clean.
The skimmer flap, combined with a robotic pool cleaner, will guarantee that the debris is filtered correctly and not able to settle at the bottom of the pool and make the robot cleaner’s job easier. The skimmer deals with the larger debris: this means the cleaner is free to concentrate on smaller debris and dirt on the floor.
How does a pool vacuum and skimmer work with a robot pool cleaner?
Robot pool cleaners are used in conjunction with a pool vacuum and skimmer to help maintain a clean pool. Here’s how:
Skimmer: The skimmer’s primary function is to collect debris off the surface of the pool. It stops large parts of your pool from clogging the filtration system, allowing your robot pool cleaner to get on with more complicated cleaning tasks, such as vacuuming the pool floor and walls. Pool cleaning robots are usually meant to run post skimmer, which improves their efficiency.
Pool Vacuum Robot: Another tool that helps to clean the pool floor and walls is the pool vacuum robot. And while the skimmer is busy working away at the surface, the robot vacuum works hard to keep the pool bottom clean. Using a skimmer and pool vacuum cleaner can prevent the settling of dirt and debris at the floor of the pool, so that the robot pool cleaner can keep water quality in checks.
What If You Do Not Have a Skimmer Flap?
Contained without a skimmer flap, your pool maintenance efforts may struggle on various fronts:
Skimmer Overload: A flapless setup can allow larger debris to get stuck in the skimmer, blocking the basket or the intake pipe. Clogs can diminish the throughput of the filtration system and overwork the pump, causing physical damage over time.
Ineffective debris collection: Without it, the skimmer will not be as effective in trapping debris, resulting in less clean pool water.
Heavy Lifting for Robot Pool Cleaner: A malfunctioning skimmer means your robot pool cleaner has to pick up more slack to clean the pool. It will have to deal with additional debris on the pool floor, which may slow down its effectiveness and functionality.
So Do You Need A Skimmer Flap For Your Pool?
Definitively, yes, a pool skimmer flap is an essential additive to an effective pool filtration system. It helps your pool stay cleaner overall by reducing clogs, providing stronger suction, and getting more water into the skimmer faster. The flap still has an important job to do when your pool is ready to be used, even if your pool gets cleaned with a powerful robot like the Beatbot AquaSense Pro or the Beatbot AquaSense.
A robotic pool cleaner can do a lot of the heavy lifting, but equipping your pool system with a skimmer flap will help keep your pool filtration system operating smoothly, resulting in a cleaner and more efficient pool care program.
