Raypak Pool/Spa Heater Safety Relief Valve

[goodkodiak]

I am looking for a replacement safety relief valve on my raypak heater. I have a 25000 gallon inground pool and spa combo and the heater is the last piece of equipment before water returns to the pool. I think the relief valve is bad and allowing air (sucking) into the return water flow. I hear bubbles in the heater header where the water comes in and out of the heater. I tend to manually open the valve when I'm opening the pool to get air bubbles out. I don't know if playing with this valve is good or bad at opening. I have read that the safety relief valve should match the GPM flow from the pump as well. I swapped out my old 2HP pump a couple years ago and now I have a pentair variable speed pump. Does this effect the safety relief valve on the heater? I have attached a picture of the relief valve currently installed. I would like to buy another since this one seems hard to find.

To summarize:
Is it possible for an old safety relief valve to go bad and slowly allow air into the system?
How important is flow rate of pump for safety relief valve?
Is there ever a need to manually open the safety relief valve?
How to purge air out of heater header?
Is there a replacement that is more popular than the original one from my system? I'm thinking amazon or local hardware store.

Thank you!

 

[ps0303]

To summarize:
Is it possible for an old safety relief valve to go bad and slowly allow air into the system? When they go bad they leak water, not letting in air.

How important is flow rate of pump for safety relief valve? No correlation between the two. Pick one up from Amazon of the home repair store.

Is there ever a need to manually open the safety relief valve? No.

How to purge air out of heater header? You actually let air out thru your filter air relief valve. If there is air in the system, it's in the entire system and usually gets pushed thru to the pool or like I said, use the relief valve on the filter. I bet what you are hearing isn't air bubbles.

Is there a replacement that is more popular than the original one from my system? I'm thinking amazon or local hardware store. I come across units that are old and newer and almost every one doesn't have a relief valve. If you really wanted to replace it, if it's not leaking water don't worry about it, you can get one from the big box home repair stores.

Thank you!

See my replies above in red.

 

[goodkodiak]

Thank you ps0303. It is not leaking water and I managed to get a little air out of the filter air relief valve. Maybe it's the water "wooshing" around in the heater that I hear. Good to know that I can pick up a replacement and not have to order the old valve currently installed if it ever goes bad. Thanks!