Flexible PVC piple swelling from outside in...

[justinwerner]

My skimmers have slowly stopped working over the past few years. Looking into the skimmer and down the main drain line, it looks like the walls of the flexible PVC pipe are closing in on itself much like cholesterol in your arteries. I can only assume this is happening in the flex line from the skimmer base to where it connects to the hard PVC line, and now its completely blocked. I can blow air through it and no debris comes back out into the skimmer. I'm about to cut the soft line in the middle and look down the pipe to see if the diameter is narrowed. Anyone ever heard of this? Anything I can do? Is there some way to clean it out? I can replace the lines if necessary, but that wont be so easy on the main drain. Thanks in advance for the help.

[superdoopie]

I have seen this quite a bit when the flex pipe is used. I'll guess your pool is at least 15 years old. I've only seen it happen on skimmer lines due to chlorine tablets being placed in the baskets for many years. You'll have to replace the affected pipes. If you have been putting tabs in the skimmers, stop and use a floater in the pool or inline chlorinator at the equipment.

It's strange that this has happened to the main drain. Is this a single main drain system? If so you may want to just plug the drain and forget about it. New regulations are requiring people to get anti-entrapment devices on any pool that has a single main drain. These can be expensive.