Just Purchased House, No Idea What I Am Doing - Pool/spa Combo Equipment Question

[brob]

Ok Guys, be easy on me .

So, after owning my pool for a week I get the spa to turn on and get hot in about 15 mins... was about 102degrees. The next morning I woke up to the spa being completely empty and pool having tons of water. After 3 hours of trying to figure out what to do (get the air out of the line, set the valves right, etc... i get my spa filled).

So, I think I have everything figure out. I know exactly where each of the 3 valves should be for "normal" pool operation. My understanding of normal is... drain from pool, return to spa, and have the skimmer working. Here is a picture of my equipment and a diagram of what is happening.

Is it true that to operate the spa we need to drain from spa, return to spa, and of course heat the water? I have 3 valves on my equipment. 1 is turns of the jets for the spa (2 way), 1 is pool return, spa return. The second valve I believe but not sure is the pool drain, spa drain. What in the world is the 3rd valve for? My Aunt told me i have a setup for Solar Heat if I ever set that up in the future.

Basically, how in the world do i get the spa to heat lol. The combination I thought was working was valve one to right (spa return), valve two to right (spa drain), valve 3 up (no idea why but down does not seem to be correct). When I did this, the little water fall thing (drain from spa to pool) stopped draining... jets were on and all seemed well. After about 15 minutes I noticed the water level in the spa was dropping over time (not alot but it got below the blue tile in the pool). I set everything to my "normal" setting and it filled the spa back up and the water drain came back on. Is it possible that the valve 3 i need to set somewhere in the middle? Would it then drain from both the pool and the spa together?

P.S. The spa is raised above the pool (typically pool/spa combo )

Thanks for any help, I really dont want to pay a pool guy to come tell me this stuff... i really should be able to figure it out lol.

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[vallypoolguy]

ok if the spa spills into the pool you need to find the spa suction and turn it off. 2nd if the spa is elevated a bit higher then the pool and usually drains to the spa to the same level as the pool then that is a bad check valve (the little round clear top thingy) . hope i helped ya .

[Pool Clown]

Start with image 289:

Numbering valves from top to bottom and left to right

#1 blue handle: Spa bypass, this allows a portion of the water to travel to the spa during normal operation. Keep open.

#2 right underneath. Thats your trouble, that handle should be moved 180 from where it is in the picture to send water to the "pool" and also that "portion of water" we talked about, goes up and over to spa.

#3 Below and to the left: This is probably your pool side suction, cuz it has two lines. Possibly 2 skimmers, or one skimmer, and one main drain.

#4 To the right: this is the pool spa suction valve. The way it's pointed is fine for "pool".

The check valve near the chlorinator is the non corrosive check valve for the chlorinator. The check valve for the spa that is probably ok, is behind the conduit under the time clock box.

The pool and spa suction and return valves #2 and #4 should always be pointing,(the handles) the same way. To the left for pool, to the right for spa. Blue handle #1 will adjust the amount of water that goes to the spa for spillover in pool mode, and must be closed when running in spa mode.

The way the valves are set now, is it takes all its water from the pool and returns it all to the spa. Since this is an incorrect setting for normal operation, it drains the spa when the pump goes off because this setting by-passes the check valve that would normally hold back the water in the spa. Does this make sense?

[IntrustCSLLC]

Right on the money P/C, just one thing that should be noted, the guts might be rotated on the #3 valve. the way it is installed makes no sense otherwise (same as a tee and a two way or a gate). When a valve is set like that a plumber will unscrew the whole top and rotate where needed,in this case it would be...counterclock wise 1/4 turn. You should be able to feather between the main drain and skimmer. If the guts have not been rotated then the line going straight down is always wide open (guessing that's the main drain so the skimmer can be feathered)If you want to check, rotate that handle a 1/4 turn counter clockwise and see if the skimmer is workingor you can rotate 180 degrees counter from where it is now. Just something you should check out

[Pool Clown]

The way #3 valve is installed is OK and can be rotated in any direction. The handle on the valve will always be adjacent to the diverter, so rotating the guts would give the same orientation.

[IntrustCSLLC]

The way it is installed he won't be able to restrict the amount of water in that line unless you raise the handle to bypass the stopper. That line will always be 100% open (if the guts have not been rotated)