Brand new newbie, hoping for help with spa drain issue....

[projectfilly]

Hey guys! This is my first post here, so please be gentle. Here's what's going on. I'm moving into my first house with a pool/spa, so I'm pretty clueless about how the whole system works. I'm a fast learner, though, and I promise to limit my dumb questions to a bare minimum. My father-in-law came over today and, er....helped....us with our pool. He was trying to figure out how the jets in the spa turn on, and how the heater works. Somehow, he flipped a valve or a switch or opened a wormhole or SOMETHING, because now all of our water from the spa is in the pool. I asked him what he did...he shrugged at me. I took some pictures of our valve setup and their current positions. I have no clue what the valves do (I mean, I know the basics, but I don't know which valve is which because they're not labeled, nor are the individual settings on each valve labeled). Here are some pictures of what we've got going on.....

Again, I'm really going to try not to be completely pool-tarded, but we're just moving in today and we're still a little lost. My fiancee isn't really a fix-it type of guy, that's more my thing, so I look forward to getting to know you guys!

Jade

 

[mas985]

The valves in the first picture control the flow to/from the pool/spa. The upper valve is for the return side and the lower valve for the suction side. Currently, the suction valve is set to draw from both the pool and spa which may be why the spa drained. However, the return side valve looks like it should be set to return to the spa (check valves are usually on the spa) but given your comments, it must be set for the pool or the check valve is blocking flow. So my guess is you should turn the lower valve so the handle is to the right. That should make it draw from the pool and return to the pool. But confirm the return side valve.

 

[caliskier]

Water goes from pump to filter to heater and back to pool, that should help with this discussion...

First, the valves have that arch shape that widens on the opposite end of your handle that represents a "wall" inside the valve, whatever that faces is being blocked. So in the top picture, the top valve that with the handle pointing to the left... Let’s call that valve Back to Pool/SPA (B2PS) and the first thing I would do is turn that valve so the handle points away from the camera and the "wall" within the valve is facing us. This would completely open both sides of that pipe. you are blocking the part that takes a dive to the right, no water is going out that way, I say going out, because...

Let’s call that valve Back to Pool/SPA (B2PS) and the first thing I would do is turn that valve so the handle points away from the camera and the wall is facing us. This would completely open both sides of that pipe

Water comes from your pool to your pump, the pipes that pull water from the pool/spa are in the front of the system, it looks like you have valve on the right side (Call it Right Side Valve RSV) and whatever comes up from the bottom is off. If you turn that so the handle is to the left the water comming from the bottom will flow through with the water coming from the top. Right now water only comes from the top. Now this goes to another valve (call it Before Pump Valve BPV) before it heads to the pump. This final valve is set to the right position if you want water comming from the left and right. Short of it, if you play with turning them to shut off pipes by facing the "wall" toward a pipe, then watch the pool and spa, you will figure it out.

So BPV either has the pool comming in from the left or the spa, on the right it would be the opposite. RSV weather pool or spa probably lets you control skimmer and drain, so I would guess it is the pool side. If you have opened B2PS like i said, now you can close one side (left or right) of BPV and see which fills up, pool or spa, if you faced the handle to the left, and the spa fills up, this means water stopped comming from the spa but still came from the pool and went back to the pool and spa, so you would see the spa fill up. It will take you some time and play to figure this out. But basically, your valves that are lower to the ground are comming from the pool/spa and the one higher up is going back to the pool/spa...

I need to take care of my kid.

 

[projectfilly]

We have liftoff! Thank you so much for your help. Now here's another dumb question. The spa is completely filled, and I went to turn the heater on (gotta soak those sore moving-all-week muscles). In order to only heat the spa and not the spa and the pool, I just turn the return valve so that only the spa jets are active, correct? Then I'm guessing I turn it back to pool/spa once we're done. The heater has a pool and a spa button, but I'm guessing without having separate returns plumbed you have to control where the hot water goes manually through the valve. Yes?

 

[mas985]

Correct