Bought a house...came with the pool...and a few problems

[Rufus&Bensen]

Hi, everyone! My wife and I recently bought a house here in the Sarasota Florida area. The pool is beautiful, recently refinished and in apparently good shape. We had a pool put in at another place we own, but that's a fiberglass/salt water pool and the one here is a concrete/gunite job with a conventional chrlorine system.

Problem: There's a spa connected to the pool (with a little waterfall deal flowing down to the pool), and while the blower works the jets do not. We had a pool guy come out to have a look, and he tells us that the spa pump won't prime, and he wants to charge us $4k to change over to a one pump/variable speed system. Of course, he also wants to sell us a new control box (since the one we have supposedly doesn't work with the Pentair system he wants to sell. I should note that the other pump, for the pool, works just fine.

My thought is that if we want the spa to work we'd be better off going with another Jandy pump, if that doesn't require replacing the whole control box. Can anyone advise me as to whether that's reasonable?

Thanks in advance...

 

[Isaac-1]

I would first determine why it will not prime, it may be as simple as something stuck in the suction side pipe, or a valve turned to the wrong position. Trying to sell you a new variable speed pump and control system for this is like someone trying to sell you a new car for having a flat tire.

 

[Divin Dave]

4000 is not reasonable IMO. Thats just crazy.

I agree with isaac, it may be something as simple as a stuck impeller, or maybe a 16 dollar capacitor on the motor needs replaced.

if worse comes to worse and the whole pump needs replaced, you can get a replacement pump prolly for less than 3 dollars online.
If your auto system is jandy, then get a Jandy pump for compatibility.

If you also wanted a one pump varialble speed system and get rid of the spa pump, Jandy makes those too.

Is there a possibility the suction line for the spa has a air leak in it, which could also cause the pump not to prime?

The gall of some of these pool people boggle my mind.

 

[Rufus&Bensen]

Thanks for the replies, guys. In fairness, the guy wanted to clean up the pipe layout and replace two pumps with one. On the other hand, he showed up determined to sell me something, and the more the better. It's a bit of a fancy neighborhood, so he might have been seeing dollar signs.

I'm going to ask the guys at my PinchAPenny store if they can suggest a straight-shooting repair guy.