To drain the spa

[jojoman]

I think i have used every combo of valves to drain the spa and i have yet to get it to drain. The Easy Touch 8 even has a label with drain spa on it, yet nothing. I can slow the flow of water to the spa but not totally. Pool/spa are only 6 months old and the spa bottom has areas in plaster that are rough and dirt and trash sit in which the wall brush either can not get to or will not scrub out the dirt with the wall brush. I can see this being a problem area when it warms up and algae season starts. I want to clean/maybe seal or fill these areas but can't do so until i can drain spa. So is it in the way the plumbing is run that you can't drain a spa or is it just me not hitting the right valve combo to get it to drain?

 

[JasonLion]

There are several ways a spa can be plumbed in, some of which prevent it from being drained, and others of which can break in a way that makes it impossible to drain.

If you have a hard plumbed bypass that sends water to the spa 100% of the time, you won't ever be able to drain it completely. You might also have the three way valve that controls pool and spa returns setup so it never goes 100% into pool mode, which can be over-ridden manually by disengaging the valve actuator but otherwise will prevent the spa from draining fully. The third possibility is that the spa return should turn off completely when in pool mode, but something is broken preventing that from working correctly.

 

[jojoman]

Thanks JasonLion, I kind of thought that might be the case where it will not drain. My PB spends February in Colorado so i'll just wait for him to get back. I need to show him how my pool cleaner port keeps having thrash that makes me have to clean that screen every 4 to 5 days anyway. I'm positive something is plumbed wrong there and maybe it affecting the spa too. By the way, do you think there is a way to fix that spa bottom?

 

[JasonLion]

The spa bottom can certainly be fixed, but it might be a great deal of work. In the worst case it may need to be re-plastered.

 

[JayBauman]

In my pool, I have to manually override the settings in order to drain my spa.

I set the controls to "Spa Mode" so the spa floor drains will start sucking water. Then I manually set the return valve to "Pool Only", which involves hitting the little hidden switch on the bottom of my valve control. When I've done both of these, the water drains from the spa and doesn't come back through the returns.

Can you do something similar?

 

[JasonLion]

JayBauman, That is what drain spa mode on the EasyTouch does for you automatically, which jojoman said didn't work.

 

[JayBauman]

JayBauman, That is what drain spa mode on the EasyTouch does for you automatically, which jojoman said didn't work.

Which is why I explained the manual work-around....

If the controls aren't doing it, I thought a manual override might be a good diagnostic tool. It it still doesn't work, then I would expect a plumbing issue.