What piece of plumbing makes the bubbles in the spa?

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tanksjeep

tanksjeep

LifeTime Supporter
Sep 23, 2015
40
Lake Havasu City, AZ
Pool Size
12500
Surface
Plaster
I'm having an issue where I no longer get bubbles coming out of the jets in the spa. If I use a shop vac and blow in to the vent pipe it works for awhile. I would like to know what kind of contraption allows air to be introduced in to the jets. Is it just a Y pipe and water going thru creates a venturi effect and sucks air into the line?

I have had the shop vac blowing thru the line for several minutes on different occasions and no debris ever comes out. I'm thinking that once the equipment is turned off over night, water is allowed to flow back into the air pipe (somehow) and this is blocking the air from getting thru. I can turn the spa off and then on several minutes later and there is bubbles coming from the jets. It's only afer sitting over night that I again have to use the shop vac to get it going.
 
Air is introduced through the 'vent pipe' when water is pushed through the jets. It should naturally occur.

I assume you are running the flow rate through the spa jets the same as before. Have you checked your filter? A dirty filter can reduce flow rate..
 
Nothing has changed since it was working a few days ago. The filter gauge is just about a 1/4 the way to being dirty so I don't think the filter is clogged (?).

So if air is introduced thru the vent pipe, what keeps the pump from pushing the water out of the vent pipe? Path of least resistance to the spa? Is there a special type of PVC fitting where the air is introduced in to the water going to the jets?
 
update:

Since I first posted this, I was getting intermittent bubbles in the spa....sometimes it would make bubbles and sometimes it wouldn't. Then the flow to the spa (makeup?) when in pool mode stopped....then it would be very slight. My filter gauge said "Clean" so I tried another gauge and it also said "Clean". I decided to clean the filter anyways since it was about due (time wise) and that seemed to do the trick. I don't know if there was some sort of blockage before the filter (reducing flow but no pressure in the filter to make the gauge show it as being dirty) or what the problem was.
 
When a filter gets dirty, it reduces water flow which affects the Venturi so it won't suck as much air.
 
mas985 said:
When a filter gets dirty, it reduces water flow which affects the Venturi so it won't suck as much air.
Click to expand...

That makes sense but two different gauges were showing the filter as still being clean. When I cleaned the filter, it wasn’t very dirty (it’s been dirtier) and the gauge still says clean now but flow is much better. I can’t help thinking that there was some sort of restriction before the filter. I checked all the valves and pump for debris but it all looked good.
 

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Yes I do but they are working fine...spa does not drain back into pool. Like I said in a previous post, all is good now after cleaning the filter even though the filter wasn't that dirty....I think something was restricting the flow BEFORE the filter and backwashing and/or cleaning the filter seemed to resolve it....I have bubbles galore now!
 
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