My build is "done" but I have concerns, and not sure how to approach builder at this point..??

[angelleye]

I will do my best to outline the points of my overall experience here and keep the story short.

Initial Research

• I've never had a pool before. Total n00b.
• 4 bids from the area.
• Chose to go with one that is well known in this exact city.
  • They've been in this city for 40+ years.
  • Lots of great feedback from many others in the neighborhood/community.
  • Also good feedback about them from the city inspectors.
• They wanted 10% down with the remainder due upon completion.

Build Plan / Experience

• Like most, we were focused on the look of the pool/spa, and were not considering things like plumbing.
  • Didn't even consider it.
• There was a specific day when the builder asked us if we had a preference on which end of the pool the spa would go on.
  • We stated that we really had no preference.
  • Again, didn't know this could/would be an important decision.
  • Following his lead, we wound up going with the layout shown in this Google Drawing.
    • Some of you might notice immediately what problem this could present.
• The overall build, communication, professionalism, etc. has been great.
  • They were here when they said they would be.
  • They cleaned up after themselves.
  • Everything went according to schedule without any delays.

When Things Started Getting Awkward

• The "pool school" they provided left much to be desired.
  • New person on their team giving the school.
  • This person had been working on Pentair equipment for years, and this builder uses Hayward, so he wasn't clear himself on how everything worked.
  • I had some questions about how to setup the timers, how the speed controls worked, etc, and was literally told "you should figure this out on your own, it would be best."
  • Okay, fine, I can handle that, but I dived in pretty deep and this led us down a series of concerns.
• Plumbing
  • After reading all about calibrating my variable speed pump based on my pool volume, etc.
    • I had everything written up for how I wanted to schedule the pump timers to maintain pool temps, etc.
  • This when I discovered that the plumbing system they did is a little bit different than most.
    • Here is a Google Drawing of the plumbing system and equipment they way they set it up originally.
      • There are two separate returns.
        • One for "regular" and one for "heater".
      • Only the "regular" return goes through the SWG.
        • I can either heat the pool OR sanitize it.
        • I could split the flow between the primary and secondary returns.
          • But then I'm only half as efficient as I should be with heat and sanitation.
    • I looked online at many examples, and I also checked the heater install guide.
      • Nothing else I see has 2 separate returns like this.
  • After reviewing my drawing and questions, they adjusted the plumbing.
    • Here is a drawing of the updated (current) plumbing system.
    • Now we have lots of options:
      • Bypass heater entirely.
        • Then go to primary return, secondary reteurn, or split to both.
      • Send flow through the heater.
        • Then primary, secondary, or split.

At this point I was happy again. They took care of the plumbing adjustment to address my concerns, and everything seemed to be smooth again, until...

Heater Problems

• The water flow was not good enough, and the water was backing up in the heater and boiling.
• I have a separate thread about this where it was discussed in more detail.
• Lots of troubleshooting led us to changing the return jets in the spa from a small "spinner" to a standard jet that doesn't pinch the water stream as much.
  • The small spinner jets were pinching the water too much, causing slow flow and the heater wasn't able to work with that.
  • Replacing the spinners with standard jets seems to have solved this heater problem.
• During this troubleshooting stage, lots of feedback I got online as well as from the plumber himself and the Hayward techs was that the spa should not be on the opposite end of the equipment.

Plumbing Leak / Bad Check Valve..??

• This is only happening randomly, but there are times when even if the pump is turned OFF, the bubbler is still bubbling a little bit.
• Also, the spa will end up completely drained at times, with all its water now in the pool.
  • I can easily fill it back up, but it's not exactly a fun thing to be hassling with.
• I have video of the bubbler going even with the pump off, as well as video showing how the valves were setup when the spa drained.
  • Unfortunately, it's random, and it hasn't happened with them here to witness it for themselves.
• The spa has wound up drained 3 times within a couple of weeks, but it doesn't do it every night, and it hasn't done it with them here.

Current Status / Concerns

• At this point, the project is "done" in their eyes.
  • They adjusted the plumbing for me when I asked.
  • They "fixed" the heater problem.
  • They cannot reproduce the spa draining or water flowing even when the pump is off while here.
• I still feel I have a bit of an odd setup with this 2-return system.
  • For spa jets, I have to use the secondary return, so still not sanitizing while using the spa.
  • The way it is now, I can either bypass the heater or not, as asked.
    • When I ask them whether I should bypass the heater during summer months when not in use...
      • I'm told I should NOT, because we don't want stagnant salt water sitting in the heater.
      • But that's exactly what would have been happening had we stuck with the original plumbing design, making that even more confusing and odd that it was done that way to begin with.
• I still have this leak happening draining the spa.
  • It's not happening when they're here, but I'm video documenting it each time it happens.
• The spa being on the opposite end of the equipment seems to go against the standards.
  • This was specifically discussed during build plan.
    • We were ignorant to this potential problem.
    • Builder decided to go the way we did with the spa on the opposite end.
  • Since all the problems happened, builder even made a comment that "I'll never put a spa on the opposite end of the pump again."
    • So out of all these years and all these pools, you learned that with mine?

How to Proceed?

• I still hold 90% of the funds for the project.
• I feel I should be pay them the majority of it, because the majority of the work is complete.
• However, I do not feel comfortable paying 100% of the balance because I still don't feel I have a fully working system that I can trust.
  • I never know when that spa is going to be drained and when it's not.
  • Twice already I went out there ready to heat it up and use it, only to find it empty.
• As mentioned, they've been great with communication (mostly) and have at least tried to address all my concerns.
• I don't want to pretend like I'm some expert, but the 2-return system and the spa on the opposite end from the pump seem like things that are not standard, and have already caused problems.
  • Of course, these things are already done and there really isn't anything we can do about it at this point.
    • Which leaves me feeling like I'm paying for a premium pool and ending up with a nice looking pool that has weird functionality.

For anybody that reads all this I would really appreciate your feedback / advice on how I should proceed. Any information on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

1. You can not withhold 90% of the money you owe them when they have mostly completed the job. No one would see that as fair. But you are bound by whatever payment schedule is in your written contract. It may be reasonable to hold back 10% of the total until you are satisfied the work is complete.

2. With respect to point #1, you should draw up a simple punch list of all the things you feel are unfinished and communicate that list to the PB with a payment of 80% of the project so that you are still holding 10%. That way they know you are being an honest person but you still have concerns.

3. The long plumbing runs are a non-issue most likely. Many pools are built with long stretches of pipes running around the pool. Now I honestly would have done the spa at the other end of the pool but the long runs are not the issue.

4. Please post more information about your plumbing including pipe diameters for the suction and return pipes as well as a clearer picture of your equipment pad (attach a picture, not a Google drive link). Indicate all the equipment you have with model numbers.

You spa draining back into the pool could be caused by a lot of things. It’s mostly likely a defective check valve, an improperly placed or missing check valve or diverter valves that are not closing properly.

 

[ajw22]

First of all the location of your spa has nothing to do with any of your problems. Whoever is saying that either does not understand fluid hydraulics or is simply looking to blow smoke over the real problems. And you have some real problems.

IMHO the root cause of your problems was an incompetent plumber or plumber crew and inadequate supervision of what the plumber crew was doing.

This is evidenced not just by the wacky way they originally plumbed your equipment pad, but by how the pipes were routed and placed alongside the equipment pad. All the return pipes should have been placed together not the staggered piecemeal way they are. Even that the pipes coming out of the ground are not in a clean row logically arranged shows the sloppiness of the work.

And I believe the plumber messed up the plumbing inside the walls of your spa leading to the jets. That is the root cause of your spa heating flow problems and jet pressure problems. Unfortunately that is all buried and without x-ray vision or pictures of the spa plumbing before gunite we will not know.

While the Pool Builder may have been in business for 40 years I am sure your plumber crew has not been doing it for the 40 years. And the pool you get is only as good as the people on your project. Whether the builder is trying to coverup the incompetence or truly does not recognize it I will leave for you to judge.

Spa plumbing is very complex to get the proper connections and hydraulics for the air and water to mix at the jets and have the proper flow. Many "plumbers" who know how to connect pipes together were never educated and see what good and bad spa plumbing is for them to know the difference.

What can be done now?

Your equipment pad plumbing is still wonky with two different pool returns system. I would insist they redo again with the POOL HEATER -> SWG -> POOL/SPA RETURN VALVE that then goes to the SPA RETURN and to a manifold that ties together both POOL RETURNS and your WATER FEATURES. This will require some thought in how to best connect the pool return manifold with the pipes spread out around the ground.

Your spa draining may be a leaky diverter valve or a check valve. The pics you posted don't show any automation. Do you switch from POOL to SPA by hand turning valves? I think the reason the spa only drains sometimes is because of where you leave the valve position at times.

I would program the VS pump to run 24/7 at low RPMs and see if the spa never drains. While that is not a true fix it can be a work around that will cost you little.

Now we get to your spa problems. There is no quick fix for that. It will take opening up the spa wall and seeing how the jets were plumbed. Worst case it may take the entire spa to be demoed, replumbed and rebuilt. Something is not right.

When I review spa designs here I urge people to insist on a two pump design with one pump for the filter/heater and the other dedicated to the spa jets. It simplifies what each pump needs to do. This is the way my spa is setup...

I think you withhold your money until your spa is working to your satisfaction. Don't let them bully you that is the way it is supposed to be. I believe you have design and plumbing problems that your builder either needs to step up to fix properly or he may walk away.

I do suggest you maintain written records of all communications with the builder in case he tries to take legal action to collect. I hope the judge you get has a pool and spa.

 

[angelleye]

Thanks for all the feedback, I appreciate your time.

I was afraid this might be the feedback I get, and like you said, it's not exactly easy with everything already under concrete and dirt. The entire pool has now been enclosed as well, which doesn't help any sort of "redo" situation.

Is there a larger / higher-speed pump that might help the situation as a work-around as opposed to digging everything up and redoing it?

We don't have automation, so I am doing it by hand. I was thinking I could be leaving something open or not fully closed, but I've been paying close attention to that, and it seems kind of difficult to do that anyway. I've also taken a picture/video each time it happened to verify how the valves were, so I'll make sure to keep all that as documentation as well.

Going to be an awkward conversion for sure.

 

[angelleye]

1. You can not withhold 90% of the money you owe them when they have mostly completed the job. No one would see that as fair. But you are bound by whatever payment schedule is in your written contract. It may be reasonable to hold back 10% of the total until you are satisfied the work is complete.

2. With respect to point #1, you should draw up a simple punch list of all the things you feel are unfinished and communicate that list to the PB with a payment of 80% of the project so that you are still holding 10%. That way they know you are being an honest person but you still have concerns.

3. The long plumbing runs are a non-issue most likely. Many pools are built with long stretches of pipes running around the pool. Now I honestly would have done the spa at the other end of the pool but the long runs are not the issue.

4. Please post more information about your plumbing including pipe diameters for the suction and return pipes as well as a clearer picture of your equipment pad (attach a picture, not a Google drive link). Indicate all the equipment you have with model numbers.

You spa draining back into the pool could be caused by a lot of things. It’s mostly likely a defective check valve, an improperly placed or missing check valve or diverter valves that are not closing properly.

This is pretty much in line with what I was thinking. I agree I can't hold the entirety of the 90% I'm holding now. I was thinking that since my problems are related to the heater and the spa I would hold back the cost of those things on the bid until I'm more satisfied. Does that sound reasonable?

I do have a punch list of everything, but I'm just concerned about my ability to articulate the concerns in a way they can't just say I don't understand or it was actually done correctly all along.

The pipe diameter is 2" all around. I've attached screenshots of the Google Drawings, which are actual pictures with labels placed using Google Draw tools.

This is really the area I'm still most concerned, because in my ignorant mind I believe it could be related to the other issues we've been having. It just doesn't make sense to me that they plumbed this with 2 returns to begin with. Even more so when they now tell me not to bypass the heater because we don't want stagnant salt-water sitting in it for months at a time. That wouldn't have been avoidable with the original valve placement, so why do it that way to begin with? Throw in the fact that we have these flow problems with the heater and it leaves me feeling like I've got sub-par work here when I'm paying for a premium pool.

With the spa draining, they did mention that they've had issues with bad check valves lately, but since it's not happening all the time we weren't able to reproduce it while they were here. I do have video/pictures of the spa being drained and the valves as they were when it happened, but they act like it has to happen with them here in order to do anything.

EDIT: One more small thing to throw in here is that I've still yet to have a properly balanced water chemistry. The chlorine levels have been 0 much of the time even though the salt meter is reading high levels and is cranked up to 100%. We did get it into an "ok" level at one point, but pH was still off the charts, and chlorine fell back down to low-zero levels shortly after. I understand it's a salt water pool and pH is going to run high in general, but shouldn't we at least be able to get it into the "high" colors on the chart? They've left it entirely up to me to figure out the water chemistry stuff. Pool school didn't touch on it at all. That's fine, and there's plenty of material here for me to do that, but I figured I should at least have them leave me with a properly balanced pool when they say it's "done", no..??

Any additional feedback / opinions on the matter would be great, thanks!

 

[angelleye]

And I believe the plumber messed up the plumbing inside the walls of your spa leading to the jets. That is the root cause of your spa heating flow problems and jet pressure problems. Unfortunately that is all buried and without x-ray vision or pictures of the spa plumbing before gunite we will not know.

This is the best I have. Not sure if this would give you enough to be able to tell..??

 

[cowboycasey]

EDIT: One more small thing to throw in here is that I've still yet to have a properly balanced water chemistry. The chlorine levels have been 0 much of the time even though the salt meter is reading high levels and is cranked up to 100%. We did get it into an "ok" level at one point, but pH was still off the charts, and chlorine fell back down to low-zero levels shortly after. I understand it's a salt water pool and pH is going to run high in general, but shouldn't we at least be able to get it into the "high" colors on the chart? They've left it entirely up to me to figure out the water chemistry stuff. Pool school didn't touch on it at all. That's fine, and there's plenty of material here for me to do that, but I figured I should at least have them leave me with a properly balanced pool when they say it's "done", no..??

Nope, That is all on you.. They have no idea how to get your pool to TFP standards.. They just throw stuff in the pool and hope it does not go green... You going to have to get a Great Test Kits Compared and start going by the SWG pool Recommended Levels...

Also because your in FL you are going to lose CYA on a regular basis.. I would recommend you take CYA to 80 and FC to SLAM Process Level just to make sure there is nothing growing, then let your FC drop to 7 and turn your SWG back on.. Keep your FC high for awhile till you get what your pool wants and needs down...

 

[angelleye]

Nope, That is all on you.. They have no idea how to get your pool to TFP standards.. They just throw stuff in the pool and hope it does not go green... You going to have to get a Great Test Kits Compared and start going by the SWG pool Recommended Levels...

Also because your in FL you are going to lose CYA on a regular basis.. I would recommend you take CYA to 80 and FC to SLAM Process Level just to make sure there is nothing growing, then let your FC drop to 7 and turn your SWG back on.. Keep your FC high for awhile till you get what your pool wants and needs down...

Okay, I'll remove that from my punch-list. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[ajw22]

Not sure if this would give you enough to be able to tell..??

Nope, none of the spa plumbing is visible.

 

[TampaKathy]

How long ago was your pool filled?