Switch to manual pump timing in the fall?

[aquarium]

The plum tree next to the pool area decided to drop a bunch of leaves last night, and this morning the skimmer basket was clogged. I don't know if it was bad enough to make the pump run dry, I wasn't up that early today. So I've taken the lugs off the Intermatic rotary timers for now and I guess I'll run the pumps manually until this thing called 'fall' is over.

I haven't had a pool for an entire year yet (bought house w/pool this past April) so I'm guessing this is a yearly thing - take the pool to manual pump timing during heavy drops from the trees? I think the oaks do their thing in the spring, so there's another season to watch out for.

[Poconos]

Something you can do is just use the OFF tripper. That way you can manually turn the pump on and if you should forget to turn it off, it will by itself and not come on again.
Al

[Sumo1]

I have a couple of oak trees around my pool and they are killing me right now. The skimmer can't possibly keep up and I can't be there to clean the basket every hour so I turned off the skimmer suction and will just let the main drain do the work. I'll use a leaf net for the floating stuff and the Polaris will get the bottom. That way I don't have to work the pumps.

[mas985]

I use to have the same problem then I got a solar cover. A leaf net cover or a solar cover would prevent the leaves getting in the pool in the first place. I use a leaf blower to blow the leaves off my cover so I don't get clogged skimmers anymore. :-)

[Sumo1]

Mark, when you say solar cover, do you mean like a sheet of bubble wrap? I have one of those but I've never used it for leaf defense. With my pool's free-form shape, I don't get complete edge to edge coverage. Might be better than open water, though.
Hal

[mas985]

Mark, when you say solar cover, do you mean like a sheet of bubble wrap? I have one of those but I've never used it for leaf defense. With my pool's free-form shape, I don't get complete edge to edge coverage. Might be better than open water, though.
Hal

Yes but it is a 12 mil cover. A bit more robust then bubble wrap. Anyway, it is not perfect but it stops most of the leaves from entering the pool. I blow them off each week when I mow the lawn so I do not let them collect so they can work through the edges.