We have a hole in the ground! New O/B in Queen Creek, AZ

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Is this plumbed correctly? Plumber still working so I wanna catch it now

My pool is nearly finished with plumbing and I went around looking at the valve setup and where all the pipes go so I'd have a good idea of how things will work. I noticed the valve on the outlet side of the filter has a 3-way valve that is set up to always direct water to the heater inlet. The filter outlet side can be closed. There is a return loop from the heater that goes to the SWCG or back to the valve on the filter outlet. This side of the valve can also be closed. The only side that is always open is the section running to the heater inlet.

Should the filter outlet be able to be shut off? Seems like a recipe for disaster if you shut it off and run the pump. Am I being dumb or do I need to have a talk with the plumber when he gets back from a parts run or wherever he is? Thanks for any help you can give!

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Re: Is this plumbed correctly? Plumber still working so I wanna catch it now

The valve should be set up to never closer off the filter outlet but only rotate the 90 degrees from the two "outlet" positions of the valve.

Valves are used in that orientation all the time and there should be no issue. I assume that valve will be automated?

You have the flow wrong for the red lines from the valve. The flow will go the opposite direction from the valve until it hits the tee and heads on down to the SWG.
 
Re: Is this plumbed correctly? Plumber still working so I wanna catch it now

Yeah, you're right since the pressure will always be higher on the filter outlet than the heater outlet. That valve will be automated. Thanks for the response! It still seems odd to me to even plumb a valve in that could potentially cut off the filter outlet. I can manually turn it to shut off the filter outlet right now. I guess it's considered safe once the automation is hooked up? I'd rather it just doesn't even have the ability to cut off the outlet.
 
Re: Is this plumbed correctly? Plumber still working so I wanna catch it now

51,

It appears to me that the valve just by-passes the heater, or not. Looks good to me..

To force water through the heater the valve handle would point at the filter... Otherwise the handle should point up in the air... which by-passes the heater..

There is no value in having the handle point down, as in your pic.. and you NEVER want the handle to point directly away from the filter.

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
Re: Is this plumbed correctly? Plumber still working so I wanna catch it now

I imagine the system is being pressure tested now and that's why the valve is in that position.

The face of the valve can be removed and rotated to show the left port closest to the filter as the inlet to the valve. If you do this the stops can be used so the diverter cannot be rotated to close the filter outlet.

Once automated it won't matter anyway
 
That's your heater by-pass valve. Water from filter flows outward thru either/both lines depending on what valve handle is positioned. The red dotted line from that valve to the PVC tee will have water flowing out from the filter anytime the valve is not set to OFF toward that line.

Looking at the cover of the valve, the word INLET should be pointing toward the filter. See here for reference to valve cover: Zodiac Cover,valve-3 Port. This will prevent dead-heading the pump/filter. When set correctly, you will not be able to set filter side to OFF.

You may wish to consider a check valve (one with a low load spring) in the line between the heater and PVC tee in the heater return line (red dotted line coming from heater). This will prevent any reverse flow in the line and allow continued operation of the pump while th heater is removed for any reason.
 
Re: Is this plumbed correctly? Plumber still working so I wanna catch it now

Brian and Jim have you covered. I responded to the same question in your build thread before I saw this post.
 
That all makes sense. The way it is plumbed right now, the INLET label on the valve is actually the outlet going toward the heater. In simpler terms, INLET is on the bottom side of the valve in the picture. It just doesn’t seem right to me. I could go turn off the outlet from the filter, which seems very wrong to me. What you described is how I would expect it to be plumbed.

EDIT: I got the response I needed in my thread in the plumbing section. The face of the valve can be rotated as necessary to change which side is the inlet. Thanks for all the help. I promise I looked up the 4717 valve to see if this was an option, but didn’t come up with anything helpful.
 
Re: Is this plumbed correctly? Plumber still working so I wanna catch it now

bdavis466 said:
I imagine the system is being pressure tested now and that's why the valve is in that position.

The face of the valve can be removed and rotated to show the left port closest to the filter as the inlet to the valve. If you do this the stops can be used so the diverter cannot be rotated to close the filter outlet.

Once automated it won't matter anyway
Click to expand...

Perfect. I didn’t know the face of the valve could be rotated as needed. Problem solved. Thanks all!
 
INLET on the bottom leg of the "T" is the default position from the factory.

From a few threads around here, seems some plumbers don't take the time to orientate the cover correctly or just don't know how. My daughters pool was installed by a reputable PB and their plumber "modified" the handle to rotate where he needed it to - obviously incorrect BTW.
 

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Re: Is this plumbed correctly? Plumber still working so I wanna catch it now

You should make sure that the heater doesn't turn on with no flow. The heater has a pressure switch which can be activated with no flow.

If the heater is going to be used, the bypass should be closed.

The pump should be programmed right away to limit the top speed to a safe maximum. Maybe about 2,400 rpm.

Some of the glue joints look suspect. You can see primer on some joints and not on others. You should have a thin ridge of glue at the outer rim of the fittings. Some fittings don't show glue or primer.
 
We aren't planning on going too crazy with the waterline tile and just want something reasonably bright. We had selected one, but now I'm worried it might just blend in with the water too much and not give enough pop. Let me know what you think.

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We are also going to do small accents around the sun shelf and possibly all of the benches. I wanted something iridescent, so maybe this:

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We will have a back wall with pillars and 3 sheers. To keep costs in check, I am looking at something like this:

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I'm open to suggestions on all of it. Rebar is going in as we speak. So far, every sub has showed up right when they said they would. The only hangup was the earth itself.
 
Re: Is this plumbed correctly? Plumber still working so I wanna catch it now

JamesW said:
You should make sure that the heater doesn't turn on with no flow. The heater has a pressure switch which can be activated with no flow.

If the heater is going to be used, the bypass should be closed.

The pump should be programmed right away to limit the top speed to a safe maximum. Maybe about 2,400 rpm.

Some of the glue joints look suspect. You can see primer on some joints and not on others. You should have a thin ridge of glue at the outer rim of the fittings. Some fittings don't show glue or primer.
Click to expand...

James makes a good point here and the problem you are going to run into is the Pentair Automation doesn’t really have a heater bypass program for you to select.

What I ended up doing is using a separate Aux circuit for the heater that was powered off of the filter pump relay. I name that Aux circuit HEATER and assign the automated valve on the heater bypass to that Aux circuit.

When the time comes to use the heater you have to activate the demand for heat on the pool or spa menus and also hit the HEATER aux circuit. By doing this the heater will never get power without the pump running and the bypass in the closed position.

If Pentair would only allow an Aux circuit to be assigned to Heat demand then there would be no need for a work-around but unfortunately this isn’t the case….I haven't had the opportunity to see the IntelliCenter programming but hopefully that system's programming is more bypass friendly.
 
Great info, thanks all. I'll go have a closer look at the joints and speak to the super about it. I'll be even more concerned with the joints that will be under the patio, but want them all done right. Even when you hire the people who are supposedly "the best," there are still mistakes along the way. It all depends on which guy you get on a particular job. Nature of the beast, I suppose.
 
I like the iridescent tile you picked, not crazy about the waterline one. Looks like blue tile with white scale on it.
Something to consider, line the edge of your shelf and stairs with the iridescent tile so it’s clear where they end/start.
 
Arizonarob said:
I like the iridescent tile you picked, not crazy about the waterline one. Looks like blue tile with white scale on it.
Something to consider, line the edge of your shelf and stairs with the iridescent tile so it’s clear where they end/start.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm starting to feel the same about the waterline tile. It actually looks more like sparkly water in person, but it's still kinda blah. The iridescent tile is what we're planning for the edges of shelf/stairs. It is not cheap, so we'll probably just do spaced out 2"x2" squares or diamonds along the edges. I've seen that in other pools and it looks pretty nice.
 
The main drain on the right in the above picture had a pressure gauge on it so we could pressure test the plumbing. Sometime today, he took the gauge off. He still has to come out after rebar is done to install the spa therapies, so I can ask him about that. I assume a pressure test is something the inspector is going to be looking for on plumbing and gas, correct? I spent some of my day checking every wire tie on the rebar to make sure it isn't going to be poking out of the concrete. I'll hopefully have every one checked a couple of times before shotcrete day. I don't want any rust surprises. Can anybody point me in a good direction for lower priced waterline tile that will go well with surf blue pebble and a light almondy colored travertine?
 

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