Questions about design of pool

[dshuster]

I am new to this forum and to owning a pool. We just purchased a home at the end of March 2013 and I am trying to learn as much as I can about the pool. My pool has a spa attached to it with a small waterfall. The wall between the pool and spa also has a small hole opening.

Why would anyone design the pool with a hole between the pool and spa?

How would you maintain the water temperature of the spa to be different than the water temperature of the pool?

Wouldn't you be heating everything not just the spa? I know you can plug it but why would anyone design the pool this way? The only reason I can think of is so the spa never drains empty accidentally.

Also this pool does not have a heater which I do not understand how you have a spa without a heater.

Thanks
-Dimitry

 

[shuye]

For our pool, in normal operation, the pump draws water from the pool from the main floor drain and from the skimmers. You can adjust the suction between the two with a valve if you want more surface skimming action, or more suction from the bottom of the pool to help suck up any dirt on the botton. After filtering the water, the water is returned through the "returns" or nozzles in the walls of the pool and in the nozzles in the spa. This provides circulation in the pool to hopefully push any surface dirt / leaves into the skimmer and to mix the water in the pool. The return nozzles in the spa also provides circulaiton and mixing in the spa and the "hole" in the wall that you see provides a place for the overflow of water to go back into the pool.

When you set the pool to spa mode, either automatically, or by turing valves, you open the valve to the drain in the spa and close the valve to the drain / skimmers in the pool. You also close the valve to the return nozzles in the pool. This way, all of the water is being taken from the spa by the pump and returned to the spa. You may or may not have a blower that can be turned on to provide the bubbles in the spa.

If you had a heater, this would allow the spa to be heated separately from the pool, so you are heating a much smaller volume of water. If you wanted to heat the entire pool, you would leave the pool in the "pool" mode and then turn on the heater.

 

[dshuster]

Shuye,

Thanks for the quick reply. I was wondering, would the hole between the spa and pool make the heater work extra hard and use up more energy since water would be escaping to the pool from the spa? I know you can adjust the valves so the water is taken from the spa and returned to the spa but isn't the hole in the wall making the heater work inefficiently or is it negligible on the amount of energy wasted?

Thanks
-Dimitry

 

[Bama Rambler]

Also this pool does not have a heater...

Here's your answer. Without a heater the hole doesn't affect the temp. I suspect that it's there just for the reason you suspect. To keep water in the spa. If you decide to add a heater you can plug the hole and run the spa as a standalone.

 

[shuye]

Does that hole go all the way through? I've never seen anything like that. At first glance, I thought that was one of the return nozzles in the spa. If the hole does go into the pool, it appears to be just to keep the spa level with the pool. You might need to check to make sure that the return nozzles in the spa are working correctly. Can you tell if the hole looks like it was designed that way, or does it look like it was done after the pool was built?

 

[harleysilo]

Maybe it is just so when not in hot tub mode, splash-out is returned to the spa via that hole, which does not require the pump to be running to fill (equalize) water levels.