Essential Parts of Swimming Pool

Quick! Can you name the seven essential parts of a pool? The parts that, if your pool didn’t have them, would leave the water dirty, contaminated, and quickly looking like a lagoon? Well, if you can’t, that’s OK. We didn’t warn you there’d be a pop quiz today. Well, one of the best things you can do for yourself and your pool is to learn about all the essential parts of a swimming pool. It’ll help you with your daily maintenance and will come in handy for occasional troubleshooting.

Knowing the Parts of a Pool Makes a Big Difference

It would be difficult to fully maintain your pool if you’re unfamiliar with its anatomy. Think of it this way—if you were going to maintain your car rather than take it to a mechanic, it’s imperative to know how the engine works, what all the parts are, how they work together, and what to look for when something goes wrong.

It’s no different when you own a pool. Thankfully, though, a pool doesn’t have nearly as many moving parts as a car, so you can take care of it yourself a lot more easily. But that care still requires a foundational knowledge of all the parts of your pool.

Seven Essential Pool Parts

Aside from all the extra equipment and accessories you can buy, every pool has the same seven main parts:

1. skimmer
2. main drain
3. suction line(s)
4. pump
5. filter
6. return lines
7. return jets

Some of them are situated on the suction side of the pool, while the others are on the pressure side. Once you know what each part of the pool does, its location will make sense.

The Suction Side

Its name says it all. This is the side of the pool that takes or sucks in water and introduces it to the filtration system, beginning the circulation process.

Skimmers

Built into the side of the pool, these are plastic buckets that house skimmer baskets. The baskets are there to catch larger debris such as leaves, twigs, bugs, and anything else that’s too large to go through your filter.

Pool water enters the skimmer and begins its journey through the pool’s filtration system.

Usually located on the floor of the pool’s deep end, the main drain’s name may be a little misleading. While it can be used to drain the pool, it’s seldom used that way. Normally, it performs the same function as the skimmers.

This allows for better circulation as water is pulled from the top by the skimmers, and from the bottom by the main drain.

Important: Newer inground pools usually have two main drains. This is a safety measure to reduce the suction force in case something—or someone—blocks one of the drains. Older inground pools may not have two main drains, making pool safety practices even more important.

These pipes, usually made of PVC, carry the pool water from the skimmer to the pump.

The Filtration System

Serving two entirely separate but equally important purposes, the pool pump and pool filter make up the filtration system.

The Pump

Pool water doesn’t just fall into the skimmers. The pool pump contains an impeller, which spins fast enough to create a vacuum, which pulls the water into the filtration system.

The impeller is powered by a motor, so pool pumps are identified by horsepower. They usually range from ¾ to 3 horsepower. The pump size you need will depend on the size of your pool. The larger the pool, the more horsepower the pump will need to move the higher volume of water.