New pool owner here. Have an old plaster pool, 38,000 gallons, with spa attached. The house was built in 1964, and although the pool is in decent shape, the spa was never maintained. It has leaks and the tile and inlets are all in rough shape. When I ran the pool with the spa for the first time, my pool level went down a good inch and a half overnight. No idea how many gallons I lost.
The spa has its own pump, filter, and heater. Somewhere though, one of the pool return lines is tied in with one of the spa inlets. I know exactly which inlet it is, and currently have it plugged with one of those black rubber expansion plugs.
Getting to my main point, I don't have the money to redo this spa, and get it all fixed and in working order...and to be honest there is very little appeal having a spa attached to a pool that I have to run as part of the whole system. I would much rather spend $5k on a brand new standalone hot tub that I can run in the winter and use all year, as opposed to bringing this old concrete spa back to life that I can only use in the summer.
What I'd like to know is, is there anything I can look around for as far as a valve or another way to cut off the water from going to the spa? There are no jandy valves anywhere, and as I mentioned, the spa has its own plumbing, separate from the pool. Separate filter/pump/heater. There is no visible plumbing that indicates the spa is tied into the pool anywhere, but I know it is, because the spa fills when the pool filter is running.
Is it possible that the person that plumbed this pool just put a Y on one of the pool returns, underground, and tied that in with the spa? Essentially making you HAVE to use the spa when you are using the pool?
I have already had the rubber plug pop out once, causing the spa to fill, and resulting in a loss of a bunch of water.
My next step will be to get a 2" PVC plug or cap of some sort, and screw it into the spa inlet with some glue or doping and seal the water off that way...but being an engineer, I love to learn and wanted to see if there is something I can look around for, a hidden valve, anything, that would shut off the flow of water from the pool into the spa???
The spa has its own pump, filter, and heater. Somewhere though, one of the pool return lines is tied in with one of the spa inlets. I know exactly which inlet it is, and currently have it plugged with one of those black rubber expansion plugs.
Getting to my main point, I don't have the money to redo this spa, and get it all fixed and in working order...and to be honest there is very little appeal having a spa attached to a pool that I have to run as part of the whole system. I would much rather spend $5k on a brand new standalone hot tub that I can run in the winter and use all year, as opposed to bringing this old concrete spa back to life that I can only use in the summer.
What I'd like to know is, is there anything I can look around for as far as a valve or another way to cut off the water from going to the spa? There are no jandy valves anywhere, and as I mentioned, the spa has its own plumbing, separate from the pool. Separate filter/pump/heater. There is no visible plumbing that indicates the spa is tied into the pool anywhere, but I know it is, because the spa fills when the pool filter is running.
Is it possible that the person that plumbed this pool just put a Y on one of the pool returns, underground, and tied that in with the spa? Essentially making you HAVE to use the spa when you are using the pool?
I have already had the rubber plug pop out once, causing the spa to fill, and resulting in a loss of a bunch of water.
My next step will be to get a 2" PVC plug or cap of some sort, and screw it into the spa inlet with some glue or doping and seal the water off that way...but being an engineer, I love to learn and wanted to see if there is something I can look around for, a hidden valve, anything, that would shut off the flow of water from the pool into the spa???
