So I just recently bought this house and they recently (in the last 5yrs) had the pool/spa combo built. The pool has those Caretaker 99 heads to self clean the pool. My other house has a 40,000gal (18x40') pool with the Polaris 360 cleaner we have to drop in every so often.
Now I noticed on the Caretaker 99 setup, there is no other return in the pool. They are basically using this Caretaker 99 as the return. Only other return inside the pool is the Venturi Nozzle for the Polaris Leaf-B-Gone system also present. Other than that there is a water feature that can be activated/diverted water to as the return. But cant use the water feature at the same time as the Caretaker 99, there isnt enough pressure, so have to turn off the water feature to get about 15psi on the Caretaker 99 valve to get that to properly work.
Now when we bought this house half the stuff didnt work, so we started fixing thing one by one. One thing we noticed was the Caretaker 99 heads never poped up, even with the water diverted to that, next thing we know the 5way valve explodes and water spews all over the place. So we had to rebuild that, turns out the internal gears were half gone.
So now that we got it all working, Im wondering can I safely run this all the time since I dont have a true return? Im afraid I will over wear the 5way valve and that thing will explode again. Those internal gears are all plastic/nylon I believe. So not sure if they were meant to run 100% as the pool return.
Whats are the recommendations? Cause right now I was thinking to put a JVA in on the Jandy Valve to where I can divert the water to the water feature as the main return and then only run the Caretaker 99 for a few hours at a time with the Aqualink RS. But the problem with that is running the Water feature all the time it keeps bringing my pH up and bringing my TA down cause technically it keeps "Aerating" the water alot more cause the water drops about 3ft.
Dixit
Now I noticed on the Caretaker 99 setup, there is no other return in the pool. They are basically using this Caretaker 99 as the return. Only other return inside the pool is the Venturi Nozzle for the Polaris Leaf-B-Gone system also present. Other than that there is a water feature that can be activated/diverted water to as the return. But cant use the water feature at the same time as the Caretaker 99, there isnt enough pressure, so have to turn off the water feature to get about 15psi on the Caretaker 99 valve to get that to properly work.
Now when we bought this house half the stuff didnt work, so we started fixing thing one by one. One thing we noticed was the Caretaker 99 heads never poped up, even with the water diverted to that, next thing we know the 5way valve explodes and water spews all over the place. So we had to rebuild that, turns out the internal gears were half gone.
So now that we got it all working, Im wondering can I safely run this all the time since I dont have a true return? Im afraid I will over wear the 5way valve and that thing will explode again. Those internal gears are all plastic/nylon I believe. So not sure if they were meant to run 100% as the pool return.
Whats are the recommendations? Cause right now I was thinking to put a JVA in on the Jandy Valve to where I can divert the water to the water feature as the main return and then only run the Caretaker 99 for a few hours at a time with the Aqualink RS. But the problem with that is running the Water feature all the time it keeps bringing my pH up and bringing my TA down cause technically it keeps "Aerating" the water alot more cause the water drops about 3ft.
Dixit