I bought my house 7 years ago, and it came with my first pool/spa. As an experienced Aerospace Engineer, it has been great fun learning how this stuff works. I am learning that the original builder/installer may not have known their business very well. My spa overflows into the pool. My return plumbing goes: heater -> 3-way variable valve controlling how much flow goes to the pool and spa. From the valve, the pool return flow goes through a Pentair IC40. The spa return goes directly to the spa.
In pool mode, the valve is set to allow some flow to the spa that overflows into the pool, keeping the pool and spa water to similar chemistry. The SWG goes only to the pool, but the spa gets flushed with water from the pool. In the spa mode, the SWG does nothing. In the winter when the pool is closed and the spa is isolated, I have to use manual chemical chlorination.
Reading the Pentair Intellitouch manual, they recommend putting the SWG immediately after the heater (note: I have check valves but skipped over them for clarity), before the 3-way valve so the SWG can service both the pool and spa. Of course, you would need a much lower SWG duty cycle in spa mode than pool mode.
Are there any downsides to the recommended Pentair configuration? It seems better then my current setup - Thoughts? Would you replumb (I'm pretty good with PVC)?
As a side note, thanks to all on this forum for helping me learn over my years of lurking. Just yesterday I noticed that my SWG flow light was green even though the pump was off. I was smart enough to figure I didn't want my SWG trying to make chlorine without any flow. Searching on this forum led me to the advice to another member that the SWG should be wired to the pump relay load so there's no power to it when the pump is not running (thanks Jimrahbe) . Again, the original installers didn't do what the manual says to do - they wired it so that it was powered on all the time, relying on the flow switch to prevent a big problem (what I would call a single point failure). I'm not sure how long the flow switch has been faulty, but hopefully it didn't do too much damage. It is now wired to the pump relay as I await my replacement flow switch.
Bill
In pool mode, the valve is set to allow some flow to the spa that overflows into the pool, keeping the pool and spa water to similar chemistry. The SWG goes only to the pool, but the spa gets flushed with water from the pool. In the spa mode, the SWG does nothing. In the winter when the pool is closed and the spa is isolated, I have to use manual chemical chlorination.
Reading the Pentair Intellitouch manual, they recommend putting the SWG immediately after the heater (note: I have check valves but skipped over them for clarity), before the 3-way valve so the SWG can service both the pool and spa. Of course, you would need a much lower SWG duty cycle in spa mode than pool mode.
Are there any downsides to the recommended Pentair configuration? It seems better then my current setup - Thoughts? Would you replumb (I'm pretty good with PVC)?
As a side note, thanks to all on this forum for helping me learn over my years of lurking. Just yesterday I noticed that my SWG flow light was green even though the pump was off. I was smart enough to figure I didn't want my SWG trying to make chlorine without any flow. Searching on this forum led me to the advice to another member that the SWG should be wired to the pump relay load so there's no power to it when the pump is not running (thanks Jimrahbe) . Again, the original installers didn't do what the manual says to do - they wired it so that it was powered on all the time, relying on the flow switch to prevent a big problem (what I would call a single point failure). I'm not sure how long the flow switch has been faulty, but hopefully it didn't do too much damage. It is now wired to the pump relay as I await my replacement flow switch.
Bill