Valve Positioning Help Needed

I'm a newbie and currently have a pool service taking care of my pool here in south Florida.

My question is valve position for day to day use and then when vacuuming. A few months ago I asked the pool guy to position the valves for day to day and also when vacuuming and took pictures for reference. Of course that has changed over the last few months so I figured I'd inquire with you.

The attached picture was taken last night - this is the way the valves sit right now. The pump is on a timer. The vacuum attachment is on the side of the pool, not inside the skimmer.

Please let me know how I should have them positioned daily, and also how to have them positioned for optimal suction during vacuuming.

Thanks in advance.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--.../s800/pool.jpg

Hi Anthony;

I need to scare you, first:

your pool piping appears to be capable of gut-sucking a person

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/US...y.safekids.jpg http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/US...1.safekids.jpg

Here's why:

Your existing valving appears to be capable of isolating your skimmer, your main drain, and your vacuum line, resulting in 100% of the suction flow from your pump going through a single line. Most people don't realize that the suction from a pump, is capable of trapping someone and holding them underwater till they drown, or of literally, turning their intestines inside out. In the first case, victims usually die. They usually die in the second case, too, but only after months of agony and millions in hospital bills.

In your particular case, where you have a side wall suction inlet, there's another hazard. It's pretty common for young teens, especially boys, but also occasionally, grown men to 'stimulate' themselves with the inlet and outlets of a pool, with various sorts of bad results. I know of one case, locally, where a man was trapped in a motel pool for several hours, in a suction outlet like I think yours is. (It was long enough ago, that it did NOT make the news -- but it did make the rounds of the pool guy community.) In your present valve arrangement, entrapment would be a likely outcome. But, if the right hand valve were closed, avulsion of the entrapped parts would be the likely results.

That sort of side wall suction inlet is hard to 'make safe'. I'm not sure what to recommend. The simplest systems are something like the VacLess units
( http://www.vacless.com/products/prod...djustable.aspx ), but those little gizmos run in the $600 range, probably because of insurance and liability.

Others here may have some better ideas. But for now, you need to be EXTREMELY careful to make sure that the vacuum connection is CLOSED whenever people are in the pool, AND that BOTH the skimmer and main drain are open.

Hopefully, you're scared now, and I can safely move on.

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Do this:
1. Verify the valve orientation. If the valve cartridge closes the port opposite the handle, then your current situation should be: vac open, main drain closed, and skimmer open. Check, and verify this.
2. Next, rotate the valve at the vacuum 90 degrees, so that the handle points toward the pump. The vacuum should now be closed. Verify that.
3. Finally, rotate the valve at the main drain, so that the handle points AWAY from the pump and filter. In this position, BOTH the main drain and the skimmer should be open. You can sorta verify this by confirming that flow through the skimmer is reduced.
4. IF something does NOT happen as I expect -- which will be the case if the closed port on the Ortega valves is NOT the port opposite the handle -- you'll need to report back with the new info, and we'll try again.

Otherwise, here are your normal positions:

Swimming: Left valve cleaner port closed (handle points TOWARD pump); RIGHT valve full open (handle points AWAY from pump and filter)
Manual vacuum through skimmer: Left valve cleaner port closed; RIGHT valve with main drain partially closed -- handle points toward pump. (You can experiment with the valve to get the right amount of flow. Sometimes, you do NOT want 100% flow through the skimmer when vacuuming, depending on the pump.)
Vacation: Left valve cleaner port closed; RIGHT valve with skimmer partially or completely closed (so if water level drops, pump keeps running) -- handle pointing at cleaner line.
Vacuuming: Left valve cleaner port OPEN (handle pointing at pump); OR Left valve with cleaner port OPEN and drain/skimmer port partially or completely closed (completely closed = handle points at light junction box) CAUTION: in this position, the cleaner port can give you a giant hand 'hickey' -- or even rip flesh off -- if you put your hand or flesh over the port in the pool.


Sorry to be so scary about the suction issues . . . very serious injuries are infrequent, but they occur regularly. With some things, say circular saws or mowers, anyone who's awake knows they are dangerous. But with others, most people don't even realize a danger exists until it's too late.

thanks for the info Ben! i rent this house and will let the landlord know about the possible suction issues.

i was out of town most of the weekend and didn't have the opportunity to test the valve positioning yet. i plan on doing this tonight.

i did snap a quick picture this morning as i forgot to let you know my vacuum attachment isn't inside the skimmer housing. it's actually on the side of the pool near the house. not sure if this changes anything?

also, i have two main drains - not sure why?

if the positioning of the skimmer doesn't matter i'll proceed with your recommendations this evening.

thanks again.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-W...s800/pool1.jpg

Two main drains - far enough apart that one person can't cover both - are intended to mitigate the risk of drowning from getting stuck on the drain suction.
This is good.

Thanks, Dave.

Yeah, it's a little ironic that the pool has two main drains, but has an unsafe vacuum port, with no warning info on the valve.

By the way, Tony, I moved your pics to the PF Picasa gallery. I've got way too many threads that have missing pictures either because vBulletin (the forum software) 'eats' them every time I upgrade OR because users used temporary picture hosting services. Since these threads stick around and are read for years, that's a bummer.

I think this is how you would run it "normally". I believe this is what pooldoc described, I just wanted to play with photoshop for a minute :)
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...or4/valves.jpg

Interestingly, my pool has a similar valve setup. It's capable of isolating skimmer, or floor vacuum lines or spa vacuum lines or combining the three how I like. Same thing for the pressure side returns. I also have two main drains, and also two drains in the spa (one on the bottom, and one on the side of the spa, a few inches from the bottom).