ronipooh said:
Its a brand new gauge. My husband just put it on about a week ago. The old one did not work at all. Is that putty on the relief valve possibly NOT AIR TIGHT? Is that causing my pressure at the filter to be so low? Attaching pic labeled with what I think is what. I may have a faulty valve. How would I fix that? When I change the position of the valve that I think is for the floor sweeper it changes the fiter pressure gauge by about 2psi. I'm really confused.
If I have got them figured out correctly, what position SHOULD they be in?
If the putty on the relief valve was a problem, you'd have a water leak there. You would most likely see water shooting out from it from the pressure, but at a minimum, the area would be constantly wet.
You have a cartridge filter. I don't think it is possible to "recirculate" by changing valve settings with your set-up. Recirculate is typically a feature on a multi-port valve used with a sand or DE filter. It results in the water being returned to the pool with no filtration. It is unusual for there to be a multi-port valve with a cartridge filter, and I don't see one in your pictures. I also don't see a way for the water to go back to the pool without going through your filter first. This is very common with cartridge filters.
Your specific cartridge filter is different from most in that it has both a tank drain port (the one with the spigot on it), and an auxillary drain port. The auxillary drain port is on the back of the filter, and I don't see any pipe there in your pictures. Looks like it might just be plugged? Separately, I agree that you have a waste line that bypasses the filter and dumps the water out of the pool. But for water going back to the pool, it is always going through your filter, and this will register as pressure on your filter gauge.
All that said, your pressure readings seem low. On the other hand, cartridge filters usually have low head. If the water can't bypass the filter, the only other thing that could cause low pressure is that the water is being pumped out of your pool, and you would have noticed that. Since you just replaced the gauge, and it is registering something, it's probably fine. It goes to zero when the pump is off, right?
I can't tell what all of your plumbing does since many of the pipes go to/come from under the ground. There's not much that stays visible. The pipes you labeled main drain and skimmer are definitely coming from the pool and going to the pump, so those sound right. The pipe going into the side of the filter is unfiltered water coming from the pump somehow. It might go through that second valve behind the filter--the one that's not on the waste pipe. That valve is in the "open pipe" position in the picture. The pipe coming out of the front of the filter is carrying filtered water back to the pool, so your labels about the floor system make sense, too.
When you say you set the valves to "recirculate", which did you change from the current posted pictures?
The floor sweeper will change the pressure--that sounds normal.
