Valve actuators and freeze protection- valves not switching?

[cheezedawg]

This is a new problem for me this year. I tried turned on the spa on one of the cold nights this week when it was below freezing (freeze protection was on). I turned it on from my phone (Pentair screen logic), but after 30 minutes I checked the temp and it had barely budged. I went outside and the valves were still in pool mode, so it was just heating the pool. I was able to change the valves using the manual switch on them, so the valves themselves were working, but the pool equipment didnt call for them to switch for some reason.

I tried again the next day when the temp was in the 40s and it worked fine, but when I tried later that night again after the temp had dropped below freezing and they didn't work. So its my guess that freeze protection is preventing the valves from switching.

This is my second winter with the pool, and last winter I never had this problem (we used the spa a lot during the winter). I did update my firmware earlier this year after I hit the unnamed brick issue with the ScreenLogic 2 adapter. I also had freeze protection enabled for both pool and spa for a lot of the winter last year until I discovered that I was losing a little bit of water from the spa everytime it switched between pool and spa mode, and after a few hours my spa was drained and my pump was left sucking air. So now I only have freeze protection enabled for the pool. I don't see anything in my pool configuration that would have changed that would explain this.

Does anybody know if this is expected? I'd like to be able to turn on the spa on some of these cold nights without going outside to manually switch the valves beforehand.

This is a Pentair Intellitouch i7 with the ScreenLogic2 interface.

 

[cheezedawg]

Re: Valve actuators and freeze protection- valves not switch

FYI- I found a reference in Pentair's forums (poolfyi) that said that the current firmware overrides the valves to only allow them to switch to circuits with freeze protection enabled.

 

[Pool Clown]

Re: Valve actuators and freeze protection- valves not switch

That is correct. When in freeze, the system "takes over" and wont allow outside input. Since you had spa freeze turned off, you couldn't change the valves (over) to spa. If you had spa freeze turned on, i think it may have rotated to spa, but then would rotate back after five or so min (freeze cycle) i.e. keeping you from heating the spa. When you want to use the spa during freeze times, disable the freeze for both, and use the spa. Dont forget to re-enable after use.

Im guessing that your suction side actuator rotates 180 degrees while the return only rotates 90, that may be why the spa slowly drains when both were freeze protected. Spa suction port stays open longer (during rotation) than spa return does, taking more water from the spa than returning. If you freeze often, this may be something you would want to address (re-plumb) so the actuators both rotate the same amount, allowing you to use freeze protection for both pool and spa.