Spa emptying out?

[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.

[mkelley]

Well, at least I think I've nailed it down to where the problem is.

I rounded up a DVD I had made when the pool guy explained the entire system to begin with. The valves I imaged had nothing to do with this (well, nothing per se). There is one more automated valve located near the heater that is the spa/pool input controller.

This is an automated Jandy valve, and when I looked at it it was making an odd humming noise. I pushed at it and it moved like it was completing an operation and then stopped making noise. But nothing I do will move it further (automatically that is -- I can't even budge the thing manually).

So I'm guessing it has burned out, or gone bad, or gotten stuck or some thing I can't imagine. The wiring to the controller part looks okay (and is not in a place that could have gotten wrong) and it *was* making the humming so I'm guessing it still had power to it. But I'm going to have to call the pool guy$$$ into repair it, I guess.

Thanks for the offer to help, though -- it would have been nice to avoid the money but I'm pretty sure this isn't anything I could ever fix myself.

[hinejs]

The humming automated jandy valve, should have a toggle switch on the back-side. Flip it the other direction. Does the valve move? If yes, great, it may not need to be replaced, but adjusted. If no, then it will have to be replaced. A relatively simple repair. You could do yourself. The expensive part will be the automated valve itself. Youre probably looking for a JVA24 by Jandy ( a little more expensive), or a CVA24 by Pentair Water. Follow the black cord up and into the control panel and carefully remove the lead. Paying attention to where it was removed from. You'll also want to remove the actuactor itself (the motorized part) 4 screws hold in onto the 3 way jandy valve. Note the orientation of the actuator. You may also have to adjust the stops on the actuator. Open up the case on the old actuator and look at where the stops are located on the valve stem. Compare to the new actuator valve stem and adjust accordingly. By the way you're doing all of this with the power shut off to the entire pool / spa equipment panel. Its probably a 30 minture repair for a qualified tech, for you maybe an hour.

Holler if you need help. where are you located by the way?