Freeze protection is slowly draining my spa

[mattalat]

Hello - new pool owner in Texas and having issue with built in freeze protection. On Pentair Easytouch freeze protection is enabled for both spa and pool circuits, so it cycles back and forth every 15 minutes. We have a water feature and spillover from spa so in pool mode the spa still gets fed. Knowing this, as an experiment I disabled spa freeze protection and now the spa is filling back up.

My questions are
1) what’s going on?
2) since both circuits are included in “pool mode”, am I safe leaving spa mode freeze protection disabled? I’ve attached a pic of the valves when it is in pool mode to confirm

Thanks!

 

[DrewLG]

When the suction and return valves rotate to switch between pool and spa, it's possible for the timing and relative flow through spa and pool pipes to be perfect so everything balances exactly and the water levels don't change.

But it's much more likely that there will be a small net flow from pool to spa or vice versa.

If the flow is to the spa, the extra water simply flows over the spillway and back into the pool. Everything's fine, levels stay right, you don't even notice.

But if the flow is to the pool, the level in the spa will drop. That's what's happening in your system.

You say you have a bypass so some water flows to the spa while in pool mode. That will tend to refill the spa, but -- especially in freeze mode, with your pump speed probably set very low -- the bypass flow isn't enough to replenish what's lost during the valve transitions.

As you suggested, you can set the freeze mode to pool-only. If the pump is running fast enough to push bypass water to the spa, water will flow through all the pipes except the spa drain.

If you want water to automatically flow through the spa drain as well, you need to leave freeze mode enabled for both pool and spa. Prevent the spa level from dropping by either raising the pump speed or opening the bypass more. Or, if you're onsite and can keep an eye on it, just run the spillover manually to raise the spa level whenever it gets lower than you like.

 

[Lampasas1]

Prevent the spa level from dropping by either raising the pump speed or opening the bypass more.

Will increasing the spa pump speed decrease the amount of water that is draining from the spa during the
spa->pool or pool->spa transition?

 

[DrewLG]

Will increasing the spa pump speed decrease the amount of water that is draining from the spa during the spa->pool or pool->spa transition?

No, and in fact it might increase the amount of water lost to the pool during the transitions.

But it will increase by even more the amount of water that flows back to the spa through the bypass while the system is in Pool mode.

If the relative increase is large enough, the flow through the bypass will replenish all the lost water.

 

[bradgray]

Will increasing the spa pump speed decrease the amount of water that is draining from the spa during the
spa->pool or pool->spa transition?

Is your spa raised or level with the pool?

 

[Lampasas1]

Is your spa raised or level with the pool?

My spa is raised with spillover. I have the intellicenter i8ps w/scg. Like the OP, my spa is draining slowly while in freeze protection and I have to manually turn off FP every 4-5 hours and activate spillover mode to fill up the spa, then turn on FP again. At least I can do it remotely using the app, but I am hoping there is a better way to resolve this issue during our infrequent cold snaps in Texas.

 

[ajw22]

Turn off freeze protection for the spa, remove the return actuator, and partially open water flow to the spa during extended freezes.

 

[Lampasas1]

Turn off freeze protection for the spa, remove the return actuator, and partially open water flow to the spa during extended freezes.

In this scenario, the spa drain would be closed and could freeze on pump pad, right?

Could I just turn the spa off freeze protection as you suggest and manually set the spa suction and return actuators to be open slightly, returning more than suctioning, and allow spillover into the pool? Would this work?

 

[ajw22]

In this scenario, the spa drain would be closed and could freeze on pump pad, right?

Could I just turn the spa off freeze protection as you suggest and manually set the spa suction and return actuators to be open slightly, returning more than suctioning, and allow spillover into the pool? Would this work?

It is difficult to get a balance where there is more spa return then suction and the spa does not drain.

 

[DrewLG]

Could I just turn the spa off freeze protection as you suggest and manually set the spa suction and return actuators to be open slightly, returning more than suctioning, and allow spillover into the pool?

As @ajw22 says, it's always risky to prevent the spa drain from fully closing.

If you're going to adjust actuator stops anyway, my advice would be to leave the spa freeze protection enabled, leave the Suction valve alone, but set the Return valve to be much more than "slightly" open to the spa while in Pool mode -- so LOTS of water will be sent to the spa in Pool mode.

 

[Lampasas1]

Not knowing if the spa water is draining back to the pool through the spa returns or the spa suctions, would check valves at the spa suction and return stop the spa from losing water while in freeze protection?

 

[ajw22]

Not knowing if the spa water is draining back to the pool through the spa returns or the spa suctions, would check valves at the spa suction and return stop the spa from losing water while in freeze protection?

No because the water is getting back into the pool through the normal flow and not backflow that check valves prevent.

Reread post #2.

 

[Lampasas1]

No because the water is getting back into the pool through the normal flow and not backflow that check valves prevent.

Reread post #2.

Got it.

It is really frustrating to have a new pool and not be able to operate it as intended in freeze protection. With this issue being known, it surprises me that Pentair does not have a way to program a spa fill while in freeze protection.

 

[ajw22]

It is really frustrating to have a new pool and not be able to operate it as intended in freeze protection. With this issue being known, it surprises me that Pentair does not have a way to program a spa fill while in freeze protection.

I have often said that it seems no one on the IntelliCenter team actually uses their products to see how they work in the real world. Many of these annoyances could be fixed with little coding.

 

[bradgray]

You can schedule a 1 or 2 minute spillover every day. And kick it up or down depending on loss fluctuations. Or set it for fewer days.

We have to do this for a few clients on the same street where the PB gave them a shared system with an elevated spa and no connected spillover. It doesn't fix it completely, but it reduces the amount of time we sit and wait to refill it during service.

In our case, we can't overshoot or we overflow thr spa. In your case, that's a non-issue.

 

[Lampasas1]

You can schedule a 1 or 2 minute spillover every day. And kick it up or down depending on loss fluctuations.

@bradgray Can you tell me how to do this with intellicenter while freeze protection is activated? If I could schedule a 5 minute spillover every 4 hours in freeze protection, then I would be able to sleep through the night and work through the day without worrying about the spa running dry.

 

[clairsan2023]

I have the same issue with our Jandy system. In the past winters I’d have to manually turn on the spillover about every 4 hours while in freeze protection to add water back to the spa. I had to time this during the 30 minute pool mode cycle as spillover doesn’t work for me on spa mode without moving the cam on the actuator.

This year as FP stayed on for two days continuously given the cold snap I merely programmed in 6 spillover cycles for two minutes every 4 hours. See my schedule attached. The only issue was needing to know the timing of the window it ran pool mode so I can add spillover in that window. That was only an issue when FP first kicked in by monitoring the Aqualink app. Then I didn’t have to worry about it for the long FP cycle. Again not ideal as you have to change the start/stop times with each separate FP cycle during the winter but much better than waking up and manually activating spillover.

 

[Lampasas1]

I spoke with Pentair this am. They talked me through a setting to turn off the pump during valve action to stop the water flow from the pump. With that, I now have to stop the back flow from elevated spa to pool during valve action. A spa return side check valve should handle this.

This all sounds logical to me. What am I missing?

 

[ajw22]

This all sounds logical to me. What am I missing?

Your pump will go through a stop/start priming cycle up to 48 times a day. This can be hard on a pump and lead to a pump failure depending on your pump and system setup. It introduces additional risk during the freezing time.

 

[clairsan2023]

Your pump will go through a stop/start priming cycle up to 48 times a day. This can be hard on a pump and lead to a pump failure depending on your pump and system setup. It introduces additional risk during the freezing time.

Not sure if your response was to my program schedule post but if so I only run this program during freeze protection so the pump has already been primed and is running. The only thing I’m doing is changing the return valve to send some water back to the spa return when in pool mode. This is necessary to keep the spa from draining below the jets after about 5 hours from the pool to spa to pool transitions during FP. With that said does this still require the pump to prime 48 times? Other than spillover the other scheduled programs seem to be cancelled out by freeze protection. Please let me know the fallacy in my thinking.
Thx