spa water level

I have an attached spa and pool, where the spa water spills over into the pool. When I want to heat the spa, I have the suction line valve turned to "spa" and the return line valve also turned to "spa," so I am taking water from the spa, heating it, and returning it to the spa (rather than taking pool water).

But when I do this, the water level in the spa goes down significantly, so I guess it's taking water at a greater rate than it's returning it. Is this normal, or is there a problem? Doesn't seem right to me. Thanks in advance for your help.

On my spillover spa setup there are two spa valves. One of which can be used in conjunction with pool returns/waterfall, and the other of which is used to generate bubbles and is used for spa only operation like you are trying to do. My guess is you have something like this going on, or you have some kind of leak.

Maybe put your hand in front of all the pool returns while you have it set to spa and see if you've got anything coming out into the pool while you have things set to spa?

If this happens only when in spa only position it could be a bad valve on the spa/pool return is letting water back into the pool when it is not supposed to.

thanks for both of your replies, I will check these things out.

- John

It turned out to be a leaky valve. I just got new valves and some new piping put in. Problem solved. Thanks for your responses.

It's actually a fairly common problem and the first thing to check! Glad you got it taken care of.

I'm glad this thread was posted! I have the *exact* same experience. I get around it by drawing a little water from the pool, but since my equipment is under warranty, I'll ask the builder to fix/replace the faulty return valve.

good luck, famous. hope it works out as planned.