Not getting flow to all in-floor cleaning heads - A&A Magnasweep

[Monkmullen]

First of all, I'm pretty green when it comes to pools and their operation/maintenance, so please bear with me I'll be sure to add any additional info as requested. I'm just not sure what all I should put here right out of the gate.

We bought our house in Feb '15, the pool (approx 10k gal) was installed in Mar of '14, so everything is practically brand spanking new. We were very pleased. However, now we're running into trouble with the in-floor cleaning system - the A&A Magnasweep. Out of 13 heads in the pool: ~4 pop up and actually rotate; 2 pop up and don't rotate at all; and the rest barely raise their heads above the floor and limply blow out just a little bit of water.

I refuse to believe that in just over two years, 9 heads have gone bad, so my thinking is it must have something to do with the "Command Module" (gears/impeller system). Today, I had a pool company come out and look at it, and they said the equipment looked great. Brand new. They said my problem was that I had my returns open, and that we can only have flow to one or the other, not both at the same time. So he closed my returns, and it does appear there is a greater amount of water flowing through the command module (I feel silly calling it that), however the heads still are not popping up or rotating. Everything's the same. I told them that, and they suggested it was because the psi was high, and once I clean my filters everything should return to normal. I have my doubts...

So I've included a link to a video that shows my current set up, hoping someone here can give me some suggestions. Money's super tight right now, and I feel like I just paid someone $75 to come out and do nothing.

April 27, 2016 - YouTube

Fun Fact: I notice there's a lot of air in one of my baskets today, which the pool guy said is normal for variable speed pumps. Considering I haven't seen air in there since we bought the house, I doubt that as well.

Please let me know if there's any additional information that I can provide, and thanks in advance.

 

[Pool Clown]

Couldn't see the display on the pump to see what the speed was. Pressure looks a bit high, but that could be pump speed related. When was the filter last cleaned?

The "circuits" on your in-floor should (for the exception of the stairs, where there are groups of heads that function together), only come up one at a time. I don't think A&A heads spin or rotate while they are up, they ratchet (to their next position) when they drop down. I would open the water valve (command module), with the pump off first, and see if all the valves are closing. When those valves go bad, one or more valves hang open, and give the symptom you are having (multiple heads up at once). If you could video the water valve out of it's housing, and shoot the underside of it, we can tell if the water valve is ok or not.

 

[friguy3]

About the air in the filter/pump. My old house pool pump that we built, pump filter would have basically 0 air. New house, there's a lot of churning air. pool CO, maybe it just has to work it self out. Wrong! There can be a small bubble or 2 but no "churning" of air, that's a leak somewhere on the suction side pre-pump. Probably nothing to do with the inpool system. Take a hose, slowly run water over the pump lid, see if the churning goes away. Then the pipe, then the so on, when the churning goes away, that's your leak!

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

 

[Monkmullen]

Yeah, sorry you couldn't see the screen in the vid. I'm not sure what speed the pump was at yesterday. It was set to 3150 rpm in the past but we've since had the motor serviced and I don't know if they changed the setting at that time. I've got the filters out to clean and the system shut down, so I can't check the speed at the moment.

But, either way, when we bought the house and everything was working just fine, the clean psi was somewhere between 12-15. It was super high yesterday, and the filters had just been cleaned this past weekend. Our pool's been pretty nasty, so I'm cleaning them again to be sure I've got all the junk out.

Our problem is not that the heads are staying up all the time. Some work just fine (pop up, go down, and rotate as they should), but the rest either a) pop up, go down, and do not go to the next position when they go down, or b) barely pop up at all, like 1/4". It's transitioning from zone to zone fine. Is it possible all these heads are damaged and just need to be replaced?

I've uploaded another couple videos, so you'll be able to see what everything looks like in the command module (as well as my orangutan arms ).

April 28, 2016 - YouTube

April 28, 2016 - YouTube

And I figured as much re: the air in the tank. Our old house had this same issue and we had to replace some plumbing to get it fixed. As soon as everything is put back together I'll start testing for leaks.

 

[proavia]

I think you may have restricted return flow.

When is the last time you cleaned your cartridge filter? Do you know what the clean pressure usually reads?
Are the skimmer basket, pump basket and the LeafVac canister (the item just to the right of the pump) completely empty?

Your valve body and gear set look to be functioning normally. If you open the blue handled valve marked "Returns" and move the Jandy 3-way valve on the return side to shut off the in-floor and water feature completely - do you have good flow out of the returns?

Do you have the service tool to remove the individual heads? You may wish to remove one that appears to be functioning correctly and one that is not. Then compare the two - hold the head in one hand and push upwards on the bottom spring. Do you notice any difference in tension or restriction? When retracting, does the open hole in the pop-up rotate about 1/8 turn? Also, compare the hole size - one about as big around as a pencil eraser is considered a high flow head and one about 1/2 that size is a low flow head. Low flow heads are mostly used only on the top step. Each zone usually has 3-4 heads on it - these will open at the same time for about 1 - 1 1/2 minutes. As then begin closing, the next zone will open. Additionally, check to see if there is any debris obstructing the movement of the mechanism.

While the heads are out, you can cycle the pump on. This will help purge any loose debris in the line to that head (mine had a few small landscape rocks in them when initially installed). The heads do wear out occasionally - I've replaced mine a total of 3 times in 17 years (last year was the 3 time). Before reinserting the heads, put a little pool o-ring lube on the o-ring.

Let us know the answers to the above questions and we can help diagnose further if needed.

Oh, and work on getting that suction side air leak fixed. try running a little water on the fittings and lid of the LeafVac and pump. If the bubbles stop/decrease, that's most likely the location of the air leak.

 

[Monkmullen]

I ended up pulling my filters out and soaking them in a cleaning solution overnight. The pool guy suggested my filters may be dirty and restricting the water flow and, even though I didn't really believe this to be a possibility, I gave them a good cleaning anyway just to cover all my bases. I regularly hose the filters clean, but I've never soaked them before.

And it helped. A lot.

Also, I applied some sealant around the o-ring for the canister lid where the air was visible. That issue seems to be resolved as well.

So we seem to have a working pool again for the time being. Everything's been humming right along for the last couple days. Fingers crossed that everything stays this way. Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions. Will report back if things go belly up again.