Valve not fully shut when in closed position

[achianese]

Hi,

I bought a new house with a pool this year, recently joined the forum, and got my chemistry under control thanks to the great advice I found here. Yesterday I ran into a problem of a more mechanical nature. I have the valve shown here between the pool and the pump:



Position 1 is the skimmer and Position 2 is a bottom drain. It's possible to control the relative amounts coming from these sources, and it's also possible to close the valve entirely, which is necessary when I open the pump to clean out the basket, as my pump is below the level of the IG pool:



The valve was working properly before, but yesterday when I set it to "closed" and opened my pump to clean out the basket, water kept coming out. It was slower than if I opened the valve, but still pretty fast, probably a gallon every 10-20 seconds. I think something may be stuck in the valve keeping it from closing, but I can't figure out how to take it apart without having water rush out. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed? I could stick the vacuum hose in the skimmer (leaving it out of the pool) to keep water from getting out that way, but I don't know how to plug the bottom drain. It looks like this:

 

[jblizzle]

You should not run the pump with the valve in the position you are showing in the picture ... that it partially closing the main suction line to the pump.

You might be able to slow the flow from the drain down by putting rubber mat or plastic sheet over it with a bag of sand on it.

 

[achianese]

Can you please elaborate on that? My understanding is that Port 1 is for pulling completely from the skimmer, Port 2 is completely from the bottom drain, and anywhere in between is some ratio of the two. Since the valve position is in between 1/2-1/2 and Full Port 2, I interpret this as meaning it's fully open, pulling more from the main drain than from the skimmer. Am I wrong? (Note that the valve position is top right in the picture, not bottom left - it points away from the handle).

 

[jblizzle]

Unless this valve is different, opposite the handle is where the valve is usually closed. That is how ALL other pool valves are, but I am not familiar with the one you have. So the way I understand it, in you picture you are showing the 2 and the main suction line partially closed.

I think if you put the handle over the 1/2 that would have both of them open. The label is not clear if that is for the handle position or not. Does it say "closed" or something opposite the handle like most other valves?

- - - Updated - - -

Well, I may stand corrected. According to this it looks like the handle indicates the closed port ... opposite of every other pool valve out there :

 

[Keating]

The valve was working properly before, but yesterday when I set it to "closed" and opened my pump to clean out the basket, water kept coming out. It was slower than if I opened the valve, but still pretty fast, probably a gallon every 10-20 seconds. I think something may be stuck in the valve keeping it from closing, but I can't figure out how to take it apart without having water rush out.

Put a rubber ball in the skimmer (or screw in your gizmo if you have one in your winterizing kit)

for the floor drain, cover it with something soft, to make a seal, like a small towel, covered with an upside down mixing bowl and some sort of weight, to hold it in place until you remove the valve.
Once the valve is open, the pressure of the water will clamp it tight.

To make things easier next time, while you have the valve off, it might be a good time to cut both of those risers and install full port ball valves like this:

 

[jrguzmanr]

I had the same hayward valve and every year it leaked. i would buy parts for it, lube them and the next spring, again it would leak. Last year, I was so tired of trying to fix it that I bought a new one. Again, this spring it leaked. I decided to get rid of it! I had somebody install for me three jandy neverlubes, two for the skimmers (on the left) and one for the main drain. they have great reviews, so i hope to not have to deal with it next spring!

 

[achianese]

A belated thanks for all your help. My leak kind of fixed itself with a lot more working of the valve, so I think whatever twig was stuck in there just came out eventually.

I'm starting to think about winterizing and realizing that if I want to properly blow out my main drain, I need a completely air-tight seal on that valve (see pic at top of this thread), as it needs to keep a column of air holding back water from the main drain all winter.

So I'm thinking about following the suggestions of Keating and jrguzmanr to replace my 3-way valve with a pair of straight-through valves placed vertically. Does anyone have any suggestions for really durable, air-tight valve choices?

 

[jblizzle]

I would not recommend the ball valves instead of your existing valve. The stiffen up and eventually the handle breaks off.

 

[achianese]

Wow, speedy reply. Those Jandy Neverlubes look promising. Anyone have thoughts on the airtight-ness of those? Or do you think my existing valve might do the job?

 

[jblizzle]

The Jandy are basically the same design as what you have. I have no experience with winterizing though.

I suppose you could add a couple of valves on the verticals that you only use for winterizing ... might consider ones with union fittings so you can replace them when they stiffen/break.