Spa Blower issues

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Thought about this issue a bit more. The hartford loop is installed in the side of the spa. The distance from the top of the water to the top of the spa is 3". Take away 2" for the size of the pipe and we end up with a hartford loop that is a maximum of 1" above the water line. There is no check valve so what is happening is that when the spa turns off, the sudden lack of pressure in the blower pipe is causing water to flow back into the water pipe. This in turn causes at least a partial blockage when the blower is turned on because the blower is unable to push ALL of the water out of the pipe (it's about 2.5' under the water level in the ground). Because of the partial blockage the blower is overheating because it cannot blow the amount of air required to keep cool.

I believe this explains why the previous blowers melted the pipe. The newest blower detects that it's overheating and shuts itself off, therefore it doesn't melt the pipe. My guess is that it ran for roughly five minutes before shutting down. The base of the blower was around 95 degrees on a day when the outside temperature was 55 degrees. I would think that if things were working perfectly that the temperature of the pipe would be well below the 40 degree difference.

This also explains why the blower is requiring twice the amperage specified in the documentation.

I have reached out to the supervisor who built our pool. He is very knowledgeable and hopefully he can get this fixed for us. The only option I see at this point is to raise the sides of the spa by the required 11", fix the hartford valve, and redo the travertine and glass tiles. Any alternatives???

Also, if they raise the sides of the spa, how should they go about doing that. Should they add rebar, shoot additional gunnite and then seal that section with Aquaron???

Is there a minimum distance we should have between the bottom of the 180 degree 2" pipe and the water level in the spa to prevent this issue?

Thanks in advance.
 
You got me to thinking about my blower even though I do not have any issues with it and it has been installed about 5-1/2 years now.

Your installation sounds very much like mine as far as distance and pipe sizing including number of 90 and 45 bends. My spa water height is about 8" above ground level, blowers are 10" below water level and the blower motor is about 4' above ground level

I have a 750 gal spa with seven jets.

I pulled the docs that came with my "Air Supply" unit (Silencer model) and also checked the voltage and amperage readings - 240V/3.5A for a 1 HP "Silencer" model per specs and my reading were just about on the money. Unit does not get hot even after running a full 30 minute cycle. It did specify to use 2" pipe (no increase due to length). it also listed for the optional 120V install as using 6.7amps. (For a 2hp unit it listed 120V/10A or 240V/6A)

The specs also call out a 1hp unit for 4 to 8 jets (so that is right) and gives the following guidelines for the water pressure
for each 10' of 2" pipe - add 1" of water pressure
for each 90 bend - add .5" of water pressure (2x45 = a 90)
maximum height of water above lowest section of air channel (in inches)

It lists a 1HP unit would be correct for up to 40" of water pressure so I should be good there as well.

What bothers me most is your amperage reading being twice what is listed, that indicates that either the voltage is improper or they picked up the wrong splice points in installing the unit. Yes, on startup your initial amperage may be higher but should settle in a mater of seconds if not quicker. I could not find if you specified what model of the Polaris you have so I could not verify the amperage specs. The charts in the Polaris book for the different voltages seems to have an error because there is no ungodly reason for the amperage of the 2.0hp models to have the same amperage listing for the 240V 1-566-03 model is the same as the 120 model 1-566-01, I would think that the both 240V models of the 2 hp units should be about 5.6A.

I also downloaded you Polaris blower manual and the specs are very similar for the 3 different size units to my brand but I did note in the troubleshooting section on page 9, last item talks about 110V vs 220V wiring, see page 12 thru 14 and verify that it is wired correctly and test the voltages there (at the splice point) to verify that the same voltage is being supplied depending on the wiring configuration.

Hope I gave you some insight as to where to look. If all the above checks out then I would look at the other listings in the troubleshooting section of the Polaris booklet.
 
What is confusing is that when you block the flow of a blower, the current should actually decrease. It will still overheat eventually because of the lack of air flow but it should be under current.

Can you remove the blower from the air pipe and run it that way to see if it is still drawing too much current?
 
The person who supervised the construction came out today. Fortunately I have a good relationship with him.

He agreed that there is either an obstruction or that the Hartford loop is to close to the waterline.

Before demolishing anything they will pressurize the line (after removing the blower) using a compressor. If we don't see any junk coming out they will raise the Hartford loop up above the water line.

Thanks
 
I thought I'd post the resolution to the issue. The hartford loop was at least an inch below the water line and the plumber had used two sweep 90s. Water flowed back into the air pipe after turning off the air blower, the water filled up the pipe enough that it constricted the flow of air causing the fourth blower to die. They raised the height of the line well above the water line (we were able to verify when the spa blower was turned off that the water didn't go above the pipe) and used two hard 90s. Have run it at least 20 times now without the same issue, it only took five times before.

Also, they are now running 2" lines for the blower. Do not let a pool builder talk you into 1.5", the 1.5" will still cause constriction. The warranty on the blower is void if you use anything less that 2" pipe.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. Hopefully someone else learns from my experience.
 
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