ZugZug

First leak fixed...surprising even though I didn't hold one of the joints for 30 secs after gluing and I can see it shifted...it's not leaking! BUUUUUUUUUTTTTTT...found another leak in the same general area (different 1.5" pipe and possibly another one on a smaller pipe that is a little harder to get to. Now I just get to play Mario Bros and fix the other leaks as I find them. Would have loved to try to figure them out tonight but the Michigan mosquitos were in absolute attack mode. Will be spraying some Cutter out there tomorrow and continuing the fun.

Good thing you told me to just replace the check valve instead of trying to salvage it!!! When I cut the old check valve off that same crack that was in the flex pipe extended right into the check valve and the valve was damaged! Was hard to see because it was on the back side. Appreciate all of the advice and even suggesting things I didn't think about!

I'm one step closer to completing this repair I went to a local spa store and they had a generic 1 1/2" check valve that says on it that it has a 1/2 pound spring. The valve fits the pipe correctly...but in checking the existing check valve that will be replaced there is no spring. The flap can be moved very easily with my finger. I would imagine there should be plenty of water pressure to push that new spring loaded valve open but wanted to check on here what you think. Would that generic spring loaded check valve work...or are those Tiger River check valves (like RDSpaGuy posted above) very specialized and I should only use a direct replacement? If it's a direct replacement with shipping will probably cost about $45 and I would need to wait a while for it to arrive vs this generic one that costed $17. Thanks again for all the advice and help!

Thanks RDspaguy. Slightly off topic question...but how does that check valve work (I'm just curious and was surprised I couldn't easily find any animations on YouTube talking about it). I understand how they work on a sump pump...but not sure purpose on a spa. Just above the one where I need to replace the pipe there is a PVC fitting that goes from 1.5" to 3/4" T to 1.5". The 3/4" tube goes to a jet. There is a similar setup on the same line a few feet later where the 3/4" goes to another jet. Are those check valves just there for when water is not being pumped down those tubes so it doesn't try to flow back to the pump? If it is removed what would happen? After I cut the 1.5" tube that crack goes about an inch into the flex pipe and I was asking a plumber friend if a barb on the inside would work so I didn't have to replace the check valve and the PVC fitting. He thinks it will still leak. I'm putting some serious thought in to putting a barb, and a glued PVC slip coupler, and a pvc rubber coupling with stainless steel clamps around the tube on one side and the check valve on the other. He said if I do that to send him a photo of it so that can laugh about it in his shop

Thanks RDspaguy. I actually ordered a heater controller board from you guys last year that had a blown relay...you were very helpful then and appreciate the help now! I'm going to see if I can get lucky and see if I can slide a coupler inside the check valve and just replace the flex pipe that is broken just before it. The check valve still looks to be in good shape...I just have a big crack in the pipe that goes in to it. Definitely freeze damage because my cover was leaking and it took the local place I got it from 7 months to make it (you know...because Covid made everything in the world take longer). The old cover leaked water after I shut it down for the winter because the cover wasn't ready. The good thing is I have removed so much of that dreaded spray foam to find this leak...I will be able to see if any of the other pipes are leaking before closing it back up. Thanks again for responding and including a link to the part.

Hello Everyone, I've been digging foam out of my Tiger River Bengal spa to find a significant leak but now that I found it I'm not sure how to fix it. The pipe is a 1.5" flexible hose that runs into a black (rubber?) boot. The crack in the pipe is at least 10" (I still need to dig out more foam under the filter housing to see where this goes) but my issue is it is split all the way up to (and probably inside of) that black boot. The boot itself looks to be fine (no cracks). Here are my questions: 1) What is the purpose of this boot? It connects to a PVC union that splits off a 3/4" pipe and continues out the other side with a 1.5" flex pipe. Is the black boot just there to reduce shaking of the pipe and if it wasn't used would cause the flex pipe to fail at some point? 2) Is it possible to cut the flex pipe and remove it from inside of the boot to put a new flex pipe into the boot? If so what is used to "glue" in flex pipe back to the boot? Would PVC glue work or I would need to use something different? 3) Would it be better to cut the flex pipe up till an inch or two before the boot and just glue a PVC union around the flex pipe (up to the boot) and see if the glue would seal the crack heading into the boot? The major crack in the pipe is about 2" away from the boot...and it's just a hairline crack that go into the boot. 4) Can I even purchase this boot and the PVC union to just replace the entire configuration? If I eliminate the boot will that cause problems down the road? Thanks for any help you can provide!

Got the new board in the mail and installed today. At first I thought the heater wasn't working because I expected the heating element to get hot quick but called the place I bought the part from to ask for any advice on how to troubleshoot if the heater was also bad and he had me check the AMPs it was pulling from the board. Said it should be around 25AMP. Of course the cheap Harbor Freight amp meter I bought for like $10 was very inaccurate and showing 15 to 30AMPs depending on where I moved the clamp so I went and got a better meter. By the time I came back it had heated +5 degrees and continues to go up. Finally! Figured I would put a final post letting people know it seems to be fixed in case someone else looks for this later and needs an answer. If I had to narrow the troubleshooting on this (Tiger River Bengal Model MM 230V) it would be this: Make sure power is good to the relay board (30AMP and 20AMP). My heater is running on the 30AMP but apparently there are some configurations out there that run off the 20AMP for heater. There is also a TON of different wiring configurations (the manual shows 5 but there are even more). Hopefully you know what yours is or can figure it out based on the different diagrams. so my steps below describe for the 50AMP hot tub 30AMP heater 20AMP jets). Check that the white and black posts on the relay board are sending approx 230V to the heater. You can stick one probe on the white post and one probe on the black to get the reading. If you only have 115V one of your relays is probably bad. You can find out by checking each post individually with the meter to a ground...that should tell you which is bad. If you have no power then the first relay in the series could be bad (or all 3 if the have a 3 relay board like I did). If the relay is bad buy a replacement board (got mine for about $154) and replace. The new boards only have 2 relays (see picture attached for the new baord...and my old board is in the post above). If you have 230V going to your heater you will want to check how much AMPs are being pulled from the relay board to the heater. With a clamp meter put the clamp around the black wire and see if you are pulling approx 25AMPs. If so...then your heater is probably working correctly. If it's not pulling that amount you can do an Ohm check on the heater by checking unplugging the black and white leads (turn the power off first) to looking at the resistance. Should be about 10 Ohm. Good luck if you are troubleshooting like I was. Will try to help anyone that may be having a similar issue but this isn't something I normally do...I'm sure someone else on here would know better

After doing some more searching I'm finding that blown relays are a common problem with the heater circuit board. There is an upgraded circuit board that goes from a 3 relay setup to a 2 stronger 2 relay setup. I ordered the new board (IQ 2020 HEATER RELAY BOARD, 2001-2009.5 Item #: 77119) after watching the install video (shows a 120V replacement but mine will just be the same steps using no jumpers and putting wires in same places they were previously). I also called and talked to BackYardPlus and they knew exactly what I was dealing with because this is a common issue with this board). Will need to wait until I setup this new board to see if my heater is still ok with what happened to it earlier with running without water.

Hello everyone, I have a Tiger River Bangal Model MM from around 2001 (its the 230V converted with a 30AMP and 20AMP subpanel) IQ2020 Circuit Board. Even though it's around 20 years old...only used for about 3 years between old owner and myself. A while back it was working fine then one day I went out and the bromine floater wedged against the filter which caused all the water to suck out of the filter area and presumably ran the pipe dry. Not sure how long it was like that...found when I was checking the chemicals. When I tried to start back up everything but the heater worked (jets, circ pump, lights on board, etc). I went through all troubleshooting figuring it was the no fault heater...but actually discovered I had a blown relay on my heater board / daughter panel. My meter shows I'm getting 120V from the white heater wire post but nothing from the black heater wire post (a different post I read said I should be getting 230V from the two so that is why I checked the circuit board). When I looked at the relay from the back I can see it was blown. I'm hoping my heater is still ok...getting about 10ohms when I check resistance. The main circuit board has a LIM OK and HTR ON light lit up too. My question is could the water draining dry through the filter actually cause the relay to blow like that? I would think the heater would have blown before a relay did. Usually if a relay blows it's something else upstream that caused it...but it was working fine until the water drained from the system. I think I've found a place that sells the daughter board for about $150 but not sure how often people have found a blown relay and replacing the board will fix the main problem (and not instantly blow the relay again when I hook it up). Any thoughts or advice on just replacing the board? I also can't find the relay anywhere (if I wanted to try to just replace that). The relay is G8P-1C4P-V 18VDC. I can find G8P-1C4P (no V) but it's a different circuit. Was thinking since the board is $150 I could try to replace the relay itself for $10-$15 but doesn't look like that is an option.