spa draining and refilling???

[pbeckman]

First of all let me start by saying that I am new to pools and we just bought a house that has one. I have a basic understanding of pools and can read and learn what I need, but I have a question about a problem. I have an attached spa to the pool that has the small waterfall that spills into the pool. I noticed that the pool needed to be refilled after several days. i thought it was a leak in the pool until the pump went out and I had to go 5 days without running the pump and the spa was the one draining and not the pool. I capped off all 4 jets thinking it may be one of them and it still leaks. Last night i put food coloring in and checked each jets and nothing was leaking. I do have two drains at the bottom of the spa. It appears to be leaking into one of the drains (by checking with food coloring). i then got a big cooler and drained the spa into the pool and left about 4 inches of water in the spa and then noticed that water was coming back in via the other drain. So now I am really confused. Is there any setting on the valves that could be the issue?

Thanks for any help,

here is a link to the valve setup.

 

[jblizzle]

Welcome to TFP!!!

I added the IMG tag around your link so the picture shows up.

So does the spa drain lower than the level of the pool water? Sounds like there are just trying to equalize between the 2 bodies of water which would point to a leaking valve or missing check valve.

Add a picuture of the entire equipment pad. Can you give any insight into what all the 4 suction lines and returns are?

 

[pbeckman]

Trying to get the pictures sent from my phone and I will add as soon as they do.
Here is what I do know.
- turned off solar panels, spa still dropped
- turned off pump while it got repaired and it still dropped, lower than the pool. (I think)
- plugged all 4 jets, still dropped
- emptied out spa, spa filled back up (now that I think about it, about to the level of the pool)
as for the pipes, here is what I do know
the far left is the spa filter. If I turn it to the off position no water comes out the waterfall
middle valve is (I think) the main drain vs skimmer valve
far right, I have no idea, I have not been able to move it, and did not force it thinking that if it was too difficult then don't do it.

Thanks for all you help so far, I can't wait to see my water bill!

 

[pbeckman]

One more thing... The spa has two drains (or white circles) on the bottom. I did an food color test and it looks like the one on the left is sucking the water and when I drained the spa the one on the right had water coming back in.

 

[pbeckman]

Here are the pictures. One of the spa drains and one of the equipment.

 

[jblizzle]

Is that pump to the right for the spa jets? Likely it uses one of the floor drains and the other spa floor drain is one of the 4 pipes in front of the pump on the left that is used for filtering and heating.

You really need to figure out what each of those 4 pipes are for. Likely a skimmer, the pool floor, the spa floor and ????

The valve on the far left is the return valve and likely on 1 side is the pool and the other is the spa. Right now you have both open so the water is going to the pool and spa. If there is no check valve heading to the spa, then the water can drain back to the pool through that valve.