spa leaking 2" per day

[jcm0020]

I shut my equipment off while I was away from the house for a week and came back to my spa being down almost 2 feet. My pool and spa are connected and using the same filter so I thought maybe the spa is leaking back into the pool. I've tried waiting until the spa water drains enough to make a difference in the pool but the freeze protect has been turning on at night and filling the spa back to normal level. Is it possible that my Jandy actuator valve needs an o-ring replaced? Does anybody have any ideas of what I can do before I pay $80 for a service call? I'd hate to pay $80 for a $10 fix.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jason

 

[polyvue]

On my connected pool/spa if I manually set the actuator off so that it doesn't turn on by command, my spa empties in less time than it takes me to run to the pad and reset the equipment... I should say that it ALMOST empties, because the spillover is only inches above pool water level, so the pool fills and begins to dump back into the spa. Not sure what's happening with yours, but the actuator is a good place to start diagnosing.

 

[lborne]

Its either the actuator not closing the inlet to the spa, the valve seal itself is bad or the check valve on the return to the spa. Or a 3rd option is a leak to the outside and eventually you'll notice the entire pool level dropping. Assuming its not the 3rd option, this should be easy to diagnose and fix yourself.

 

[Guest]

If it is a raised spa and the water is equalizing down to the pool level it is a bad check valve. Simple fix. From your description of the problem I'd bet that's the culprit.

 

[jcm0020]

It is a raised spa and I do feel comfortable saying that I did notice a slight rise in the pool level over the past 3 days. I'll look into the valves. Thanks for your responses.

 

[Guest]

You should have a check valve on your spa return line. I would check that first. Might have a leaf or something stuck in it, leaving it partially open. The water then checks back down the line and empties back in to the pool. Once it is equalized it stops. If somebody did not play with the valves (like spa suction/pool return) then the check valve is your "leak"!

 

[jcm0020]

I looked at my equipment and I do have a check valve on the spa fountain return. I think I need to drain the spa and turn the fountain valve off or else water will come flowing out of the check valve when I open it. Does that sound about right?

Here is a photo of my return lines.

 

[Guest]

You could put it on spa suction/pool return and just dump the spa water into the pool. Or you could close that Jandy valve and see if it slows the water enough to work on the check valve (I can't really tell if the Jandy valve is ahead or behind the check valve from the picture!). Whatever you do, it is easy to just take the 8 screws off of the Jandy check valve and pull the flapper. Maybe it needs a good cleaning, or maybe you need to replace the flapper. Either way, really easy fix!