Pool & Spa w/ Spillover

[wolfson292]

I have a 10k gallon in ground pool with a raised adjacent spa with spillover. This is a foreclosed home I bought, so I have no information on how this was originally set up. There is an Aquatherm Heatpump thats attached to automated Jandy valves so it can switch between pool and spa mode. The tablet chlorinator is before the return Jandy valve so chlorinated water is passed in both modes.

Right now I am paying someone to care for the pool as I am still moving and not there often enough to keep up with it, but I will surely take over maintaining the chemicals myself when I move in. My real problem is more with valves, spillover, and the heater. Originally in SPA mode the heater would turn the Jandy valves to isolate the Spa so water was only run through it. In pool mode though, some water was still returned to the SPA so the spillover/waterfall functioned. This meant that the SPA quickly emptied all its hot water into the Pool which was not very economical. Since I only have one pump I have to run it in each mode for a period of time during the day. I opened up the return Jandy valve and set it so when in Pool mode no water is returned to the SPA. This is all well and good, but I now assume I'll need to maintain the chemicals in the SPA separately.

This being my first time with a pool/spa that are interconnected, I am thinking I'm missing a much simpler way to manage all this.

Thoughts?

Approx 10k gallon IG cement, Cartridge Filter, Aquatherm Heater

 

[wolfson292]

After a lot of searching I found this thread: inline-water-heater-for-spa-only-t17863.html

This basically answers my question. Letting some of the pool water run into the hob tub is the preferred method, and to only heat the SPA for a few hours at a time when you want to use it.

 

[Guest]

First of all, welcome

OK, now let's get down to business! You should not have to play with the valves to make all of this happen! There should be a spa bypass that allows you to have some of the water take a detour through the spa on its way to the pool, thereby purging the spa water into the pool and keeping everything clean. If you want to go to spa mode, you would just have the valves turn to draw (suction) water from the spa and return it back to the spa. In essence, you have two "loops": one for the pool (pool suction/pool return) and one for the spa (spa suction/spa return). This way, when you are in spa mode, you will just be heating the spa.

It really is pretty easy. If you post up a picture of the equipment area we can probably help more!

Stick around here and you'll get any and all help you need

 

[wolfson292]

Thanks for the reply. After reading that other set of posts I was really hoping I had such a thing, but on the output side after the chlorinator is just the single automated Jandy valve. Now I could be missing something, so I'll get some pictures posted today.