Spa emptying out?

[mkelley]

I have an concrete IG pool and spa combo, with solar heat that has worked just fine for over a year. With nothing that I've changed suddenly when I turn the spa on the water empties out of it instead of the jets shooting stronger.

I have an Aqualink that controls the spa/pump/solar, etc, but even when I turn this stuff on manually (at the control panel near the pump) it does this.

When they first set up the pool/spa they set the valves so that some water would always come in through the spa (I think he said about 20-30%) when the pump is running to clean the pool. I know the solar diverts about 50% of the pump pressure (I have a 2 1/2hp pump for the 15x30 pool so it's rather oversized).

I don't even know where to start to look for the problem here -- does anyone have a clue or do I need to call a pool repair person in?

[waste]

m, sounds like the valve(s) to send water to the spa have been turned off, so your spa drain is still pulling - but no water is going back to the spa. I can only speculate as to why this happened:
1) At some piont, the manual switch on the actuator valve controlling spa return was pushed to the opposite position (thereby reversing the movement of the valve), or manually set to close the valve and then left in the 'off' (center) position.
2) The actuator valve has become disconnected from the control pannel, or the wire sliced (weed whackers do this on a regular basis)

The first thing to check is the physical valve that controls the flow to the spa jets (the handle points away from the closed port). Also, can you see the valve moving when you activate it via the system? I'm also assuming that this is a 'spill-over spa', does it 'spill-over' when in normal pool filter mode?

I'm trying to picture your setup and what may have possibly gone awry, the more info you can provide about the setup will allow myself, and the others here, to help you better - without a costly service call .
(BTW - by getting my response, you have "called a pool repair person in" - I just can't be there physically). Please let me know what you can about my ?s, and I'll offer more suggestions - Waste

[mkelley]

Thanks so much for your prompt reply and questions to point me in the right direction -- I'm working for the next couple of days and won't be able to check on anything until after that, but I'll then repost with what I find out.

[mkelley]

All right, after experimenting this weekend I'm not sure I still understand any of this but I can give you more information.

There are a number of valves in the pool loop, but I can identify the workings of the solar and pump valves. As a year has passed the markings identifying the other two valves are unreadable, but they appear to be the ones routing water to the pool and spa in various ways.

I manually switched the various choices I have -- pool mode, spa mode, and spa fill (I didn't do spa drain since the spa mode effectively does this and I have no doubt the spa drain one would as well :>). The various choices I made along with what it does to the valve I took photos of and they are posted here:

http://www.kelleytown.com/pool_valves.htm

You can click on any image to enlarge.

When I turn it to pool mode water appears to come into the spa and spills over into the pool, and the pool cleaning system (in floor) operates. When I turn it to spa mode the water drains out of the spa and as it reaches the bottom water is still coming in from the spa valves (but obviously not enough to offset the drain process) but it comes in very slowly. When I turn it back to pool mode the water shoots back into the spa vigorously until the spa fills back up and starts spilling again. When I turn it to spa fill it does fill the spa until it starts overflowing but even in spa fill it appears water is being routed to the in floor cleaning system.

Hopefully this will make sense to you. I will greatly appreciate any direction you can point me to.

[waste]

m, I've looked at the photos, I've thought, I've looked again and thought some more ... (I saw this last night and looked again today - {I'm currently having to fight w/ DW for computer time - I made the mistake of giving her an Ipod for an aniversary present, I should have stuck with jewelry }.

OK, so the glaring thing that I see from the pics is that #1 and #3 show the same valve settings. From this I surmise that the topmost line is the 'spa fill' (pic #2 shows it as open). I am also figuring that the suction side has an actuator valve on it, I'm thinking that it only opens the spa drain when in spa mode or spa fill, otherwise it's closed. From what I can see in the pics, the 2 pipies on the 'un-actuated' valve (bottom in the pics) feed the in floor system (2" line - the left one)and the wall rets and spa rets(the 1 1/2" - right one).

The best I can come up with is that you have a nearly identical set-up on the suction side (a spa line comming into the actuator valve with 2 (or more) suctions comming from the pool with a 'manual' turn valve between them. This could explain what's happening to your pool, but won't explain why you used to be able to use it without the spa draining , I'm obviousely missing a peice of the puzzle

If you need to use the spa this week, call in the pool pro, if it can wait - please post pics of the whole system, and we'll save you $ (if not time)

Sorry I can't be more help, but if you're willing to give me an 'e-tour' of your set-up, I can probably help you. With the pics I got a much better idea of what's going on, unfortunately not enough to tell you exactly what has happened (or is happening) - sorry

[mkelley]

Thanks for looking!

We're in no hurry to use the spa -- while we'd like to get in we haven't been able to for nearly a month now so a few more weeks won't hurt. I'll try this weekend to shoot all the images to give you a complete look at everything so you can make more sense out of it (I wish the labels hadn't rubbed off on the pipes, though).

Thanks again for helping out -- by next Monday I'll repost here the new image links.

[hinejs]

these actuators are all the same, pick your most affordable option. I've not found anyone to rebuild these units. but I've got about 8 of them on the shelf I was going to rebuild once I had a few more in the pile.

[mkelley]

Thanks, guys. I'll order one of these things tomorrow and as soon as it gets here (probably by the end of the week) I'll give it a shot on installation (hines was right on about the price -- I was quoted $370 for the fix and while I don't mind paying for someone to do it this time, I'm guessing this won't be the last time one of the three of these valves I have goes bad so I might as well learn how to do this myself).

[mkelley]

Just a final message to let anyone who might be interested (yeah, right) know how this came out.

I ordered and got the Goldline valve actuator replacement and installed it yesterday. It was actually simplicity itself, but it took a little longer than it should since the instructions were sketchy and I didn't quite understand the fairly obvious (now) part of the way the thing fit on the valve itself (there is one smaller tab/slot that is the only way a actuator or handle can fit properly, but if you don't know this you can spend a lot of time wondering why the @#$#! the thing doesn't fit on).

While I could have spent $140 and let someone else do it for me (and at my ancient age this isn't such a bad investment) I'm really glad I did it because I now understand the valves part of my pool *so* much better, including the electrical panel the stuff all wires to. And next time an actuator goes bad (and it *will* happen :>) I am confident I can replace it in just a few minutes.

Thanks to waste and hinesjs who helped on this thread -- you really helped a lot, guys, and I never would have tried this without your encouragement. It's nice not to be at the mercy of the Pool Guys (even though some of you *are* those guys <g>)

(And the wife and I enjoyed our spa time greatly last night -- the spa will tide us over until pool season starts in another two months).