Spa Jets "Leaking" at sides (not just shooting out the nozzle)

[thephatp]

I just had a pool installed and fired up the heater and used the spa for the first time yesterday. I was very disappointed to find that water/air (from the blower) was "leaking" out the edges of the jet, not just through the nozzle. Is this normal? I would imagine this affects the pressure coming out of the nozzle (especially when it's happening on all 10 of my jets), but not only that, it's causing bubbles to shoot straight up my back, but in an unpleasant way.

Here's a video with just the pump (and heater) on: Pool Spa - No Air Blower - YouTube

And here's a video with the pump and air blower (and heater) on: Pool Spa - Air Blower shows leak ?? - YouTube

Can anyone tell me if this is normal or not? And if not, how do you fix it?

The pool is a Gunite pool with PebbleSheen plaster. The jets themselves were installed after the pool and spa were filled with water (I was surprised to see that, as I thought they installed them prior to filling with water). How do they ensure a solid seal when installing in water?

Sorry if these are dumb questions, but I'm a new pool owner and don't know any better.

 

[mknauss]

Welcome to the forum! :handshake:

The jets are not installed properly. Call your pool builder and have them return and fix them. It does not matter that they were installed after the spa was filled. They appear to just not be screwed in correctly.

Please add a signature. Read Pool School - Read This BEFORE You Post
Information in your signature will show up each time you post and it makes advice more accurate as we know what equipment we are dealing with.

I suggest you read Pool School - ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry and consider reviewing the entire Trouble Free Pool School book.

 

[thephatp]

Will do, thanks @mknauss!

 

[thephatp]

And for the record (and now in my signature): 19,000 Gallon IG Pool & 500 Gallon IG Spa with PebbleSheen (Blue Granite) plaster; Pentair Intelliflo VS Pump w/ Pentair Cartridge Filter and Pentair Mastertemp 400 heater; Pentair WhisperFlo & Air Blower. EasyTouch 8. <Robotic Vacuum TBD>. Built Aug-Nov 2018.

 

[thephatp]

Welcome to the forum! :handshake:
The jets are not installed properly. Call your pool builder and have them return and fix them. It does not matter that they were installed after the spa was filled. They appear to just not be screwed in correctly.

The project manager came back out today and drained the spa and took several of the jets off and said they looked fine. (They are Waterway Thread-In jets, FYI.) He screwed them back in and said if I still had problems, he would send his plumber out. That definitely did not fix the problem at all, so I'm concerned there is something wrong with the plumbing.

Have you seen this problem before? Has anyone else experienced this problem before? Know if it was an easy fix or not? I feel quite frustrated that this is a new build and none of the jets seem to work correctly.

 

[mknauss]

Did the project manager see the issue before draining the spa? That is not normal. Have them send the plumber.

 

[thephatp]

Did the project manager see the issue before draining the spa? That is not normal. Have them send the plumber.

I showed him the video, but he didn't say "oh yeah, it shouldn't be doing that." He basically said "the jets shouldn't be a problem; they probably just need to be tightened." That didn't seem to make much sense to me, but I figured I'd let him try. I emailed him to tell him it still didn't fix the problem, so I'm sure he'll send them out. The reason I'm concerned is because of something my wife mentioned. She was home when they first installed the jets after pool start-up. She said whoever it was spent a lot of time looking and talking and not doing much work. In her opinion, they looked like they didn't know what they were doing. So, I'm not particularly confident that they'll fix anything.

I'll try not to worry, and I'll report back once I hear something. Thanks for the advice, and for confirming this is not normal!

 

[riley00dog]

Do they screw in or push in? The returns in our pool just push in and the those installed by the Pb would push out of the wall and hang there. He sent the plumber who instead of replacing them, taped them with duct tape [emoji849] it did work but I ended up replacing all 5 of them myself and got a very tight fit and seal. Probably just cheap fittings used originally. Maybe you just need new/different fittings?

 

[thephatp]

Do they screw in or push in? The returns in our pool just push in and the those installed by the Pb would push out of the wall and hang there. He sent the plumber who instead of replacing them, taped them with duct tape [emoji849] it did work but I ended up replacing all 5 of them myself and got a very tight fit and seal. Probably just cheap fittings used originally. Maybe you just need new/different fittings?

They screw in. When you say you replaced them, did you have to replace whatever they push/snap into? What I'm worried about is that they either screwed up the original plumbing pipe, or they screwed up the insert into the pipe (assuming there is one--something for the jet to screw or snap into) and they won't be able to get that out/replace it without messing something up. Hopefully I'm unnecessarily worrying.

 

[riley00dog]

They screw in. When you say you replaced them, did you have to replace whatever they push/snap into? What I'm worried about is that they either screwed up the original plumbing pipe, or they screwed up the insert into the pipe (assuming there is one--something for the jet to screw or snap into) and they won't be able to get that out/replace it without messing something up. Hopefully I'm unnecessarily worrying.

Screw in could be a different story depending on which part isn’t fitting right. I honestly have no experience with that. Because ours just push into the wall there is no fixture on/in the shell. The housing just pushes into place with minimal effort. It may still be the housing that broken/incorrect so don’t panic. Your Pb agrees that it isn’t right so will sort it for you one way or another.

 

[kadavis]

Waterway has a full line of gunite jets. Most all the Jet internals I've seen thread into a niche without any type of seal, It may be that when you turn on the blower there is to much air entering the jet and it runs up the pipe and out the sides of the internal. In the first video you show the jet is operating properly and should need no more air. You can go to the Waterway website and under resources click on instructional manuals and the jets. Your's look like the poly jets and you can see how there installed

 

[Realaxpooltech]

Go to the source call waterway, that is who the builders, installers, and plumbers, etc, are going to call when they have questions and/or concerns.

I don't see anything wrong with the jets, or the installation of them, everything you could ever want from a jet is shown in the 1st video.

 

[thephatp]

Bringing this back up, because the problem is still not fixed.

A plumber came out and took all of the jets out and each body assembly and added tape on the threads. Even after a nice, tight seal of the assembly, the problem still happens as shown in the video. I called Waterway directly, and they said they recommend a 1.5HP blower for 10 jets (like I have). They also said that air should NOT be coming out of the sides, but only out of the nozzle.

The builder now wants to just put a 1HP blower on it to see if that "fixes the problem." I'd rather go with what Waterway recommends.

To further exacerbate the situation, two of my jets don't have strong water flow as it it, without the blower on. In fact, one of them you can't even tell visibly that any water is coming out of the jet. The only use I get out of that jet is when the blower is on. So, again, if they put a smaller blower on, it'll just make that one even weaker.

At this point, they don't seem very interested in helping me actually figure out the problem. Any thoughts on what the problem(s) might be?

 

[thephatp]

Update--the pool builder's solution was to put a 1HP blower (instead of the 1.5HP that I had), and also turn down the pump (variable speed). So, when I turned the spa on, you couldn't even tell the spa was "on" in that you couldn't see the water moving or anything coming out of the jets (though I could see the jets slowly spinning and felt a very low pressure coming out). I turned on the blower, and it still did not fix the problem.

Not sure where to go from here. If they refuse to fix this, what steps should I try on my own?

 

[Snikwah]

@thephatp did you ever get this figured out?

 

[thephatp]

Unfortunately, I did not. They tried a hacky solution of cutting rubber to make "rubber seals" out of some junk from Lowes and put them in between the jet casing, and the plumbed pipe. It helped, but bubbles still come out when the air blower is on. Also, I can see the ugly color (red) of the "seal" they made for each jet. I just let it go. I wasn't going to get anywhere with them, sadly.

Are you experiencing something similar? @Snikwah

 

[Snikwah]

Yeah mine do the exact same thing as yours. And there is another guy here that built at about the same time as me with the same builder and his do it too. I took the 1.5hp one off and went to a 1hp and it did help a little bit, it also is WAY quieter than the 1.5...so that's a plus. Today I drained the spa below the jets and took them all out. The guys that installed my jets did not use any teflon tape on the threads, and I thought that might help. I put tape on all the threads, but it didn't seem to help much. Perhaps a little. One thing I've noticed after doing this today, is that now after the blower has ran for a minute or two, I can turn it off and the jets just have a small amount of bubbles coming out. It looks pretty much like your first video. Also, the bubbles are all uniform coming out of all the jets.

I'm convinced now that there really isn't anything wrong with them...it's just simply too much air. The jets are only rated at so much flow...whether it be water or air/water mixed. It's just too much air with that blower going full blast and there's nowhere else for the excess air to go but out around the jet housing. I've been playing around with a diverter on the air pipe using a Tee fitting and a ball valve to divert some of the air out and I can get it dialed in exactly where I want it. A good amount of bubbles coming out of only the front of the jets. The problem is, the air coming out at the equipment is insanely loud. I'm still going to play around with this solution and see if I can find some way to do it where it's no so loud. I find it a bit strange to that nobody makes a variable speed blower, as that would be a perfect solution. You could just adjust it where you want it and not just have it all or nothing. Would probably be quieter as well..