How automatic cleaning works
Creation of life
Lets start at the beginning, a swimming pool is just a pond of water. Left on its own it will act as a pond.
Debris of all kinds, leaves, insects and algae spores enter into the pond via the surface. Back in 1950's back yard pools were rare, then the contaminated water was pumped out via the main drain and refilled with fresh clean water ever couple of weeks. This made owning a hygienic pool very expensive.
Even after 70 years many pools are still built with unnecessary main drains.
Filtration
The invention of the Skimmer 70 years ago and the attached filters meant the draining and refilling the pool was no longer needed. At the time of the first use of skimmers in pools one of the most important features was the rotation of the water.
Over 70 years it shows pools were built without this fundamental water rotation of the skimmer design. Had it been forgotten by the builders? or did they not know?
The video shows how the pull of a a skimmer is small.
Unless debris is delivered around the walls by water rotation into the skimmer,the system does not work.
The skimmer is named after the weir gate inside
Newtons Law of motion
The laws of motion describes a pool of water as a stagnant immovable box of water. It is held in by the walls and the floor of the pool. Only the top or surface is open. When water is returned using the eyeball jet, as in the picture, the water does not move against the floor or walls but takes the path of least resistance and is forced to the surface. This does not force water to the skimmer but creates a 360 degree movement across the surface
Newtons Law of rotation
Rotation, in the context of a swimming pool. We can show how this can cause the rotation of the whole mass of the water in the pool. The water is not restricted by the walls and so long as we constantly rotate the water it will rotate around the walls. By using the flow through the filtration system entering the skimmer and returning it through our angled jets the rotation is constant whilst the pump is turned on. This constant rotation places anything landing on the surface at the skimmer mouth to enter the filtration system to be removed.
An extra bonus is the friction between the water and the walls keeps the walls clean and the pool has no dead spots where green algae forms
Natural rotation
In the natural world we can see water rotating, one of the interesting things about this is how the rotation lifts debris from the lower depths. When it comes to rotating a swimming pool it also lifts debris from the floor of the pool, especially algae spores that appear as dust when the pools floor is vacuumed. Rotating the water lifts the spores so they enter the skimmer and the filtration system just leaving harmless dust to be occasionally vacuumed up.
Disinfection
Swimming pool disinfection is to kill viruses in the water. In clean water it works perfectly, as the adverts say it kills 99.9% of viruses, once mixed with water chlorine creates a chemical called Hypochlorous acid. Hypochlorous acid is used for the treatment of wounds and also in many anti ageing creams. It is so kind to human and animals that it does not kill any organic matter that enters the swimming pool. It does however like mixing with decomposing organic waste were it is converted to the trilogy of acids called Chloramines, that make your pool smell of chlorine.
Disinfection and rotation
However you disinfect your pool it is rarely stirred throughout the lower depths of the water. By using water rotation the water is stirred constantly the pump is on. Consider it as stirring the sugar into your coffee, sugar like disinfectant has to be stirred to sweeten your whole coffee, not just the bottom of your cup.