Jump to content

Pool/spa Water Level Goes Down


Recommended Posts

Hi all,

Here's my problem: It has a bit of history behind it, so please forgive the long post. For the first time, I decided to clean my pool cartridges myself this season, because it costs $50 for the pool guy to do it, so I decided to do it myself and save a few bucks. It's a standard Hayward filter, with four cartridges. I took the lid off, took the bracket off, took the filters out, cleaned them, put them back in, put the bracket back on, and tightened the bracket up good and snug. When I went to turn the pool pump on, I got no to minimal suction. Naturally, I thought I'd done something wrong, so took the filter lid off again, put it back on, etc.. Still no suction to clean the pool at the skimmer. Called the pool guy. He said he thought there was a clog somewhere. He used his c02 to blow it out at the intermediate filter leaf catcher. Then used his co2 to blow it out at the skimmer. Still nothing. I kept asking him why this has happened simply because I cleaned the cartridges. He didn't know, he kept saying somehow or other, something must have been washed into a pipe or gotten clogged. He never took the filter lid off to check the filters or check to make sure there wasn't anything wrong inside the canister, because he said in his opinion, it wasn't a filter problem, it was a clog problem. He gave up. He didn't charge me anything. All he could do was give me the name of a contractor who could come out and maybe unclog it with his equipment and if not, might have to dig up the concrete pad or go underneath the soil to hunt for this clog or whatever. He also noted that some of the valves (Jandy and spa valve) looked like they had been turned in the wrong direction, possibly by me during the filter cleaning. He set them in what he said was the proper place and left. Prior to cleaning, the pool was running fine, I had a bit of diminished suction at the skimmer for vacuuming, but that was to be expected because the filters were super clogged. I have a huge pine tree over my pool that dumps a ton of debris into it, and thus the filters were badly clogged. They hadn't been cleaned since he did it last year. Anyway, after he left, I played around with the valves back and forth and after a few minutes, heard a "whoosh" and the "clog" unclogged and I got full flow and normal suction. yay! or so I thought.....

After a few weeks, and into the hot summer months, I noticed that I was adding water to the pool a lot more frequently than I normally do, even with summer evaporation. After the pump turned off, the spa level would be down almost below the return. The pool would also look down to the point that I had to add water or the motor would be sucking air. I have researched this situation and the only thing I've found is that possibly a "check valve" is bad, and is allowing spa water to flow back into the pool and that's why the spa level goes down when the pump goes off. I don't think I even have a "check valve" on my equipment, or at least nothing that looks like a check valve on a youtube video I looked at. I have only two movable valves - the black Jandy valve and an Ortega spa flow valve that controls the strength of the water coming into the spa. Here's what's so weird about all this: all of these problems started when I cleaned my cartridge filters. Prior to that, all was well (except for a bit of diminished suction for vacuuming due to all the pine needles clogging up the filter). As soon as I cleaned the filters, all this nonsense started - the "clog" (that I unclogged with turning the valves back and forth which somehow got the prime started again and water flowing)....and now the loss of water from the spa into the pool. So, should I have my pool guy check the valves? I'm mystified at this point! Thanks for any help/feedback!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...