Skimz Updatre
This is a long term update on the Skimz 202. As many of you know the Skimz pumps and impellers have had design defects in them. The problem was the impeller was oversized for the pump. This resulted in not being able to throttle the air supply properly. If you opened the throttle more the pump would cavitiate. I do know that Aqua Digital was trying very hard to expedite and resolve this issue within Canada. I waited for sometime before the replacement came. This only came about after a few email exchanges with the company directly. While I was waiting the impeller had a catastrophic failure. The magnetic impeller core split. ( I suspect the original impeller trapped air in the space between the magnetic shaft and housing. This caused the corrosion of the shaft and eventual failure.) In the process it damaged the internal housing sleeve surface causing the pump to overheat. I brought this up to SKIMZ directly for a replacement pump. The pump still worked with the new impeller but at this point in time it is starting to fail again. It is starting to seize. SKIMZ did initially agree to replace the pump but now refused to respond to my second email on the subject of pump replacement. (This was in Jan). I will keep you posted on this.
Having said that.... The overall construction of the Skimz 202 construction is very good. After a year I took the skimmer out of operation and inspected it. I found the unit to have no cracks or signs of wear and tear. The welds are good. The body design is very efficient at concentrating skim mate and one of the best I have used to date. Cleaning the skimmer cup is easy, it disconnects locks in with a gasket with a simple turn. I do recommend you clean the whole skimmer once a year. You do need to have an extra feed pump (Mag 5) to deliver a constant water flow to the main skimmer pump…gravity feed is to unreliable if your ATO fails. I would say if they come up with a better pump and the cost isn’t that much more(or less) you will have a good unit that will be good for many years. Because of the construction the resale value should be quite good. It easily matches the performance of some more expensive skimmers on the market today.
Sidenote: this goes for any non North American built piece of equipment. I wish they would include adaptors(metric to English). So if replacement pumps and fittings are need we just have to go to Rona instead of Germany
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