Left My Turn Key Pool for a New One...Lost! Pentiar Intelli-Touch and More...

[Dirk]

Thinking out loud here, if there are some air bubbles visible in this check valve, before the pump, air has to be leaking here or prior to here - right?

Yes, probably. Those two orange-handle valves look to be removable (like union joints). If that's the case, then each of those valves has two o-rings. And the valve (under the actuator) also has o-rings. So any of those could be leaking (they get old). Did you run water over all of those components? Keep in mind, there could be more than one leak, and the hose-trick can't really sniff out more than one.

Here's another video that shows some other troubleshooting techniques.

 

[Dirk]

By the way, is your pool pad below the level of your pool? You don't typically see both three-way valves (the actuated ones) and ball valves (the orange handled ones) on both the suction and return manifolds unless the pad is lower than the pool's water level.

Jim might need that data point as he walks you through your system.

 

[Jimrahbe]

@pepper958

I know you have a lot of stuff going on, so just let me know when you are ready to work on your valve configurations.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[pepper958]

Long day, didn't get much time to troubleshoot due to nasty weather and then some obligations in the afternoon. But did spend some time today investigating...

@Jimrahbe the valves can't be turned manually from what I could tell. No button or detent I could release, the handle is fixed when trying to move vertically, and they absolutely certainly did not feel like they were going to turn by hand. That being said, I flipped the 3 way switch on each from OFF (center) to ON 1 (top) and the valves rotated clockwise. The valve above the pump rotated just short of 90 degrees while the valve after the chlorinator rotated a full 90 degrees (photo below). ON 2 did the same except counter clockwise. I did confirm that the right side of the inlet/outlet pipes control the spa and the left side the pool.

Now - when chasing the air leak I started experimenting with running the pool independently from the spa and vice versa. I found that when I closed the spa inlet/big orange valve and rotated the valve to accept as much of the pool as I could, the pump housing filled up with additional water versus what it had when the pool and spa were open with the valve set at half. Doing the opposite and forcing the spa to run caused the pump housing to pull in less water and certainly more air. The spa does have some continuous air bubbles coming out of the jets (the pool has 1 return with some minor air bubbles too) and on occasion a nice big "bloomp" from only one of the spa jets - note: not the closest nor the farthest, but kind of in the middle. There are 4 air adjustments for the jets (I think) that are toast (photo attached). Should these be screwed down or up normally? Need to replace these, but perhaps air is entering in here? I did try the hose trick but didn't see a difference...maybe I need 4 hoses to try this.

I also started to backtrack closer to the pool and stuck my ear near the skimmer baskets. The skimmer with the stronger suction (in line, farther past the spa in the earlier photo) has an almost audible noise towards the bottom, though no air bubbles and no loss of suction. The water pull is strong and the water level hasn't dropped at all in the past few weeks, so I don't think there is a leak (or at least I hope not). Maybe some noise is typical? Though the other skimmer doesn't do that, but the draw is far less (almost non-existent). If there is audible noise here could that must mean that air is entering back here right?

@Dirk thanks for the info on the expansion joints. I meant to take a look under the coping today and it started to downpour so I went inside. I will take a look tomorrow and see what I can find. Silly question, but this expansion joint would be all around the pool correct? Not just a few spots, corners etc.?

And no worries at all and no apology needed. Thank you for the compliment and I really, truly appreciate the help with all of this. I just want to get this situated and start enjoying it! I found this site poking around online a few years ago for my previous pool and it has helped me so much which is why I am happy to be a supporter. My previous setup included a Hayward sand filter, single speed pump, and was quite elementary in comparison to this. I looked at the pool (it was closed for winter when we saw the house) and said how hard could it be...boy was I in for a surprise.

I did try running water over all the components mentioned with no change unfortunately.

Re: the pool pad, it is set just a bit higher than the pool. The pool is kind of built into a small hill, and the filter/pump/control pad is ever so slightly higher...maybe 5 feet at best? It is about 40-50' away from the center of the pool.

Thanks again guys!

 

[Jimrahbe]

pepper,

Since we now know that you have two skimmers on one pipe.. this means that the skimmer nearest to the equipment pad will get a lot of suction and the far skimmer will get very little suction.. And, I think that is what you reported already.

I find it odd that your intake valve is set so that it can't close off the Spa side of the plumbing.. But your return valve does..

When you get around to it, here is a test I'd like you to do..

1. Use the little toggle on the valve actuators and set both automatic valves back to the original middle position.. This would mean that both the Spa and Pool pipes would be fully open.

2. Close the manual orange/black ball valves on both Spa pipes. This would mean you would suck all the water from the pool and return the water to just the pool.

3. Things to look for:
a. How well does the pump work?
b. How well does the near skimmer work?
c. How well does the far skimmer work?
d. How well do your wall returns work and how many wall returns do you have?
e. Does this configuration have any impact on the spa? ( I would think not..)

4. Leave all the valves as set above, but ... Open the black manual ball valve for the Spa Return about 1/4 of the way.
a. Does the water level in the spa increase over time?
b. If so, shut the spa pipe off, before it goes over the coping.
c. If not, where does the water go..?

5. Open the manual Spa ball valves and close the manual Pool ball valves. This means all the water is coming from the spa and returning to the spa. This is how you would heat the spa..
a. How well does the pump work.
b. Are the skimmer shut off?
c. Are your spa jets working?
d. Is water level in the spa stable or is it going up or down?

Obviously, you don't have to do any of this.. I just think it would be nice to know how well the pool works in just the Pool mode, and then just the spa mode, and in the normal "spillover" mode. The spillover mode is the one that bothers me.. It is almost impossible to to adjust the valves so that the exact amount of water that comes out of the spa, is going into the spa.. This means that the over time the water in the spa will increase and overflow the coping, or it will decrease and the spa will run out of water.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[pepper958]

@Jimrahbe tonight’s endeavor! Will try just that and report back with these findings. Thank you again.

And you are correct in that the skimmer closest to the pad is the one with greater suction. The farther one is the skimmer that hardly has any draw. Once this whole thing is ironed out I plan to take a play out of @Dirk ’s playbook and set up one of those PVC caps to even out flow.

 

[Dirk]

Good to hear you're working through all the valve options with Jim. I just want to caution you about one thing, in case it hasn't occurred to you. But first, for terminologies sake, the two valves with the actuators mounted on top of them (the ones with the switches) are considered three-way valves. The the other four (two with orange handles, two with grey) are considered two-way valves (or "ball valves").

Sidebar: the three-way valves are actually two independent components: a three-way valve underneath, and the motor (the actuator) is mounted on top of the three-way valve. Technically "sandwiched." The handle on top of the actuator is actually part of the original three-way valve. The actuator gets installed between the three-way valve and its handle.

A two-way valve is capable of on, or off, or a variable amount of flow (anywhere the handle is between fully on or fully off). When the handle is perpendicular to the pipe, that is always the fully off mode.

A three way valve is capable of sending all the water to one port, with the other port fully closed, and vice versa, and also any variable amount in between. Like 100-0, or 0-100, 10-90, or 50-50, etc. The actuators can be set to automatically go to only two positions. All the way one way, or all the way the other way. But... an actuator can be adjusted so that it stops somewhere short of "all the way." For example, it might be set to stop when one port is at 10% and the other port is at 90%, and then when the actuator moves to its other position, you might be 100% and 0%. And this can be adjusted to any number of setups:
100-0 and 0-100 or
10-90 and 90-10 or
20-80 and 100-0, etc.
The adjustment is made inside the actuator, and isn't adjustable without disassembling the actuator.

What Jim is fishing for, among several things, is why it appears your suction manifold three-way is set to 10-90 and 100-0, while your return manifold three-way looks to be set to 0-100 and 100-0. You'll explore that with him, and try to figure out why that might be, if in fact it is set up like that.

Hope some of that makes sense, and will aid your efforts with Jim.

Whew, sorry, on to my caution. Because you have both three-ways and two-ways in the mix, it is very possible to set the two-ways such that one is fully closed and the other is fully open, then inadvertently use the switch to move the three-way and set the wrong port to fully closed, and thereby close off both suction pipes to the pump. I think you might have already experienced that. That will starve the pump, possible overheat it, and potentially damage it.

It's worse to do that on the return manifold, if you inadvertently close off both return pipes, which would cause an immense amount of back pressure. If you do that while the pump is in full-on high-RPM prime mode, and that could potentially blow apart some weak link in your plumbing (or possible your filter) which could be really dangerous. So...

Think through carefully what you are doing when you manipulate both the two-way ball valves and the three-way toggle switch. And, of course, never close both orange-handled ball valves at the same time (or the two grey-handled ball valves at the same time). And be on the ready to either reverse what you do immediately if you hear the pump complain, or even get to the breaker, if it's close enough, to cut power to the pump.

OK, so on with the troubleshooting...

 

[pepper958]

@Dirk noted and understood! Appreciate the added context.

 

[pepper958]

@Jimrahbe

1) done!

2) done!

3) a) after the valves shut and the pump runs for a minute the sound is much more consistent and softer if that makes sense. The pump sounds smoother though there is still air getting in somewhere as the lid still shows some bubbles at the top. The check valve above the pump also doesn’t show as much air, and only has a couple stagnant bubbles at the top versus the random rush of bubbles when the ball valves are all open and the actuators are on half.

b) the near skimmer has a little bit more suction

c) the far skimmer has a little bit more suction

d) the pool wall returns have greater pressure. I think I have 4 , but I can’t exactly see them yet. I see surface water movement from 2 of them but I think there are 2 in the deep end angled straight out. I will know this for certain when the water clears, hopefully tomorrow.

e) and here’s the wild card - the spa has 1 single return that continues to feed.

4) a) water level doesn’t increase a drop. Upon further inspection there IS a sunken pass through in the wall that pushes the spa water to the pool. From what I can see (and feel) there is only 1 and it’s centered. When the water clears I wonder if there will be more.

b) above

c) above

5) a) closing the pool inlet ball valve stopped enough water flow to close the check valve above the pump and almost run the pump dry (so it seemed). I quickly reopened and water flow resumed.

b) did not go to skimmer out of fear of pump cavitation.

c) did not go to jets out of fear of pump cavitation.

d) think we found out how the spa level stays the same!

For what it’s worth - the actuator near the pump will turn a full 90 degrees to close off the pool inlet, but just short of 90 degrees when trying to close off the spa inlet. I don’t understand this.

If the pump is starved and water flow is basically stopped when closing off the pool inlet, something must be drastically wrong no?

I’m really confused here. I have photos I will upload shortly and some additional questions but answering this from my phone now. Curious what your thoughts are.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Pepper,

Good to know that the spa does spillover into the pool.

I don't have a clue why the automated Intake valve will not close off the spa pipe??? That does not make sense. The automated Return valve is the one that should be offset, so that a little water goes to the spa, when in the pool mode.. This water causes the spa to spillover into the pool and keeps the spa water fresh..

If your spa is an actual spa, then it should have a drain line that goes back to the pump when in the spa mode.. It sounds like this line may not be working???

I have never seen a spa with just one return or jet?? Maybe the pool was not built with a spa, and it was modified later???

Sounds like you are going to have some fun times ahead...

Let me think about your response above..

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[pepper958]

@Jimrahbe there are a total of 5 returns in the spa. 4 of them are on the longer bench wall and have those earlier picture plastic screw caps that are totally mangled, and 1 is on the other shorter wall without one. The 1 on the shorter wall without the screw cap (to the left of the attached) is the one that stayed on when the spa return ball valve was closed. Thinking out loud, I should’ve shut the pool return ball valve off leaving the spa return ball valve on, and see if this one stopped too. I think it would’ve.

Return Q1) Maybe this is the return that would keep the spa water “fresh” when not in spa mode since it’s likely on the pool return side? Could it be connected to the pool return pipe and do some combos get built that way?

Return Q2) If in pool mode, is it correct in saying that the return actuator would close off the 4 other returns for the spa leaving the pool returns and the 1 spa return on? And if in spa mode the pool returns would be off along with the 1 that keeps the spa “fresh”? That way the spa always has water movement?

Return Q3) maybe the inlet actuator is out of adjustment? (Though I doubt it)

Regarding the inlets, I’m totally perplexed too. I’m finally starting to kind of understand this and can’t connect the dots on why the pump would basically starve when the pool inlet was shut off and the spa inlet was left on. There has to be some kind of inlet for the spa.

Inlet Q1) Is it likely there could be some kind of inlet at the bottom of the spa? Or on the wall somewhere that I should look for? Maybe it’s blocked? Maybe I should’ve let it run a bit longer than 10ish seconds to see if it would actually pull through water?

Inlet Q2) What would a spa with this configuration typically have for an inlet location?

Boy this is a fun project!

 

[pepper958]

@Jimrahbe wanted to close the loop on this. Was able to get the Intellitouch panel wired and installed today (thanks again @ogdento). All is functioning and I got my day/night parameters setup. Was as easy as reconnecting the wires.

I had to break down and call the local independent pool guy for help on the suction leak. After some searching it turns out there was a floor drain in the spa that still had a cover installed. Didn’t even think to check this. Removed and now the pump is whisper quiet with no air leaks.

@Dirk regarding the coping, I poked around and found some flexible epoxy looking stuff at the seam behind the rock in a few sections, but it looks to have been cemented over at some point. Assuming this is the expansion joint (though I’m questioning how good it is). For now, not going to worry about.

Finished SLAM and passed the test this past weekend. A few small things to finish up cosmetically and explore with programming but otherwise the pool is ready for the summer! Thanks again all.