We were really surprised at how easily the skimmer came out - only took about an hour. I had actually ordered a new one expecting this one to get broken up in its removal.

The water you see is actually ground water. The pipe with the 90° fitting pointing up was the original skimmer pipe. The pipe next to it is the pipe for the bottom drain, which has stopped working. You can also see the original skimmer sleeve that was cemented to the side of the pool.

The bright white 90 at the top of the photo on the left is the new pipe he put in last year.

When I busted up the old skimmer pipe in the bottom of the hole, I found it full of D.E. The explanation I got for why the original skimmer quit working was that pool companies use flexible pipe under the ground and over time the chlorine deteriorates them to cause clogs. I had assumed they meant everything underground was flexible pipe and you'd have to dig up everything to fix that. Instead they simply ran new pipe and replaced the skimmer. Through this project (at least for my pool) I learned that the flexible pipe was only used in the transitions. Instead of hard 90° joints, they used the flexible pipe to have more give in the transitions. All I would have needed to do is dig up the transitions and replace them with either new flexible pipe or hard fittings. I never needed to spend the $2k to have the concrete deck busted up and the skimmer replaced (twice) - maybe. That's assuming the flexible transition at the skimmer wasn't made under the deck, which would have required digging a cave under the deck or busting up the deck. Both of which would have probably been easier then what was done.

In our demolition of last years skimmer we discoverd some more interesting things.

By this point we knew he only put concrete at the top for the new deck, but how did he attach the skimmer? The grey stuff you see around the skimmer opening is some kind of epoxy. Some kind of epoxy that didn't really bond with the plastic of the skimmer. We had very little trouble popping the skimmer from the epoxy if it was even attached.

In the end it was this lack of bonding/sealing that we think caused the water to work itself back along the pipes to the other side of the deck that I dug up last fall.

With the old one out, the hole cleaned up, and five different opinions on how to put it back in, we set about doing the job right this time.

From all the opinions we decided on just cementing the thing back in place. That's how it was originally attached to the pool, so that's what we'd do.

The only problem was the original skimmer has a longer sleeve which fit inside the skimmer port on the side of the pool. The new skimmer had a shorter sleeve, so we had to fabricate one in order for the concrete to pour correctly and basically create the longer sleeve and seal for us.

My Dad devised this handy extension made from aluminum flashing. We inserted one end into the skimmer sleeve and inserted the other end into the skimmer port at the pool. We put blocks in it to hold its shape and used duct tape to hold it in place.