This has been an ongoing nightmare for me each winter and it seems many others suffer from this as well. Our spa is elevated higher than the pool. When the diverter valve moves via the actuator from pool to spa, the water in the spa will drop about 1/2 an inch each cycle moving the water to the pool. This is problematic during freeze protection as I'll lose 1/2 inch in the spa every 30 minutes as the spa and pool mode rotate automatically. Over the course of 5 hours the spa level is close to the level of the spa jets.
My solution has been to wake up every 5 hours to turn on the spillover for about a minute to replace the spa water level. To make matters worse, if my timing is off and I wake up during spa mode in freeze protection I have to wait up to 30 minutes for it to go back to pool mode so I can turn on the spillover.
One solution I read about was to manually adjust the cam on the actuator so during pool mode some water is still allowed to flow into the spa return creating a spillover effect during pool mode. This sounds easy but as our temps in our area are up and down, it doesn't always go into freeze protection and then I'm stuck with a small spillover during the day when the normal pool mode is scheduled. I could go back and readjust the cams but this seems like a bit of extra work.
I saw a video this weekend where a pool maintenance company suggested installing a spa bypass or spa common with a valve that would also diver pool return water back to the spa return. So if you know freeze protection will be called for that day/night, you can manually move that valve about 30 degrees to allow water to flow back to spa return. You'd still have the normal valve/actuator to go from pool mode to spa mode. This eliminates having to take off the actuator cover and adjust the cams back and forth. I could just go to the equipment and move this valve at night if the temps are dropping and then move it back once we are in the all clear from the freezing temps. Has anyone had any success doing this?
My solution has been to wake up every 5 hours to turn on the spillover for about a minute to replace the spa water level. To make matters worse, if my timing is off and I wake up during spa mode in freeze protection I have to wait up to 30 minutes for it to go back to pool mode so I can turn on the spillover.
One solution I read about was to manually adjust the cam on the actuator so during pool mode some water is still allowed to flow into the spa return creating a spillover effect during pool mode. This sounds easy but as our temps in our area are up and down, it doesn't always go into freeze protection and then I'm stuck with a small spillover during the day when the normal pool mode is scheduled. I could go back and readjust the cams but this seems like a bit of extra work.
I saw a video this weekend where a pool maintenance company suggested installing a spa bypass or spa common with a valve that would also diver pool return water back to the spa return. So if you know freeze protection will be called for that day/night, you can manually move that valve about 30 degrees to allow water to flow back to spa return. You'd still have the normal valve/actuator to go from pool mode to spa mode. This eliminates having to take off the actuator cover and adjust the cams back and forth. I could just go to the equipment and move this valve at night if the temps are dropping and then move it back once we are in the all clear from the freezing temps. Has anyone had any success doing this?
