So I’m finally convinced that my MRC Skimmer is female. At first I would have thought male, being able to single task only. However, while growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, my dad was convinced that his cars were females, and gave them appropriate names. I can now understand his logic in coming to this conclusion.
My MRC is very finicky and extremely unpredictable. You look at it funny, you just barely touch her valve, you leave the room, you do nothing, and off she spews, spitting out excess water for no good reason. No matter what you do, you just can’t keep her happy. Sound familiar?
So I started giving this some thought! I could either shower her in flowers and jewelry, with great expense and minimal success, or I could try to figure her out. If successful, certainly worth a Nobel Prize, don’t you think?
I noticed the gate valve leaving the skimmer is position so that the handle to the valve is straight up. When you adjust the valve, the disc inside closes down, restricting water flow, creating a crescent shaped closure. With my skimmer, you have to throttle down this valve quite a bit. I’m sure the crescent shape is quite small. The one problem with this is that the restrictive closure is easily disrupted by the smallest piece of debris coming through the skimmer. So that a piece of cheato, a snail, whatever, comes through the skimmer to this opening, and BAM….that extra restriction of flow causes the skimmer to go nuts. I’m just guessing it’s some debris, I don’t know for sure, but whatever, the proper running of the skimmer is set by the restriction of this opening.
SO, here’s the idea. Install the valve upside-down. That is, the handle to the valve is 180 degrees to the way it is set up now. I can’t do this right now, but when I build the cabinet to hold the skimmer, I think I give this a try. Here’s the thought process…and please let me know if I’m a idiot on this one. (Actually I know I’m an idiot, so maybe you could just re-enforce this to boost my idiot confidence.) The flow of water leaving the skimmer will now first be disrupted by the damming effect of the valve closing. (NOTE that when the valve was the other way, nothing happened until you got to some restrictive position.) I’m thinking that the damming with start to have some effect on the production of bubbles in the skimmer chamber. Eventually (actually very quickly) the water will waterfall over the edge of the closing valve. You continue to close the valve with the damming effect and partial water restriction causing the skimmer to run correctly. Now if a piece of crud comes through the skimmer to restrict the valve, there is “room” for that excess flow to waterfall over the partially closed gate valve.
And that is how you tame the beast…in theory anyway.
Now she probably won’t talk to me for a week.
My MRC is very finicky and extremely unpredictable. You look at it funny, you just barely touch her valve, you leave the room, you do nothing, and off she spews, spitting out excess water for no good reason. No matter what you do, you just can’t keep her happy. Sound familiar?
So I started giving this some thought! I could either shower her in flowers and jewelry, with great expense and minimal success, or I could try to figure her out. If successful, certainly worth a Nobel Prize, don’t you think?
I noticed the gate valve leaving the skimmer is position so that the handle to the valve is straight up. When you adjust the valve, the disc inside closes down, restricting water flow, creating a crescent shaped closure. With my skimmer, you have to throttle down this valve quite a bit. I’m sure the crescent shape is quite small. The one problem with this is that the restrictive closure is easily disrupted by the smallest piece of debris coming through the skimmer. So that a piece of cheato, a snail, whatever, comes through the skimmer to this opening, and BAM….that extra restriction of flow causes the skimmer to go nuts. I’m just guessing it’s some debris, I don’t know for sure, but whatever, the proper running of the skimmer is set by the restriction of this opening.
SO, here’s the idea. Install the valve upside-down. That is, the handle to the valve is 180 degrees to the way it is set up now. I can’t do this right now, but when I build the cabinet to hold the skimmer, I think I give this a try. Here’s the thought process…and please let me know if I’m a idiot on this one. (Actually I know I’m an idiot, so maybe you could just re-enforce this to boost my idiot confidence.) The flow of water leaving the skimmer will now first be disrupted by the damming effect of the valve closing. (NOTE that when the valve was the other way, nothing happened until you got to some restrictive position.) I’m thinking that the damming with start to have some effect on the production of bubbles in the skimmer chamber. Eventually (actually very quickly) the water will waterfall over the edge of the closing valve. You continue to close the valve with the damming effect and partial water restriction causing the skimmer to run correctly. Now if a piece of crud comes through the skimmer to restrict the valve, there is “room” for that excess flow to waterfall over the partially closed gate valve.
And that is how you tame the beast…in theory anyway.
Now she probably won’t talk to me for a week.
