Need Pool Help – Heater?

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I want to turn my pool heater on but for it to turn on the pools' pipes have to go a certain way.



The pipes are:
Spa Return
Pool Return
Spa Return
Pool Cleaner
Spa Main Drain
Pool Main Drain
Skimmer

please tell me which has to be open and which must be closed.

Comments

  1. scubabob says:
    June 29, 2009 at 8:53 pm

    You need at least one suction line and one return line open. Judging by the valve arrangement there, you have filtration,sanitizing and heating equpment doing double duty. One set for both spa and pool. Usually the spa will have an overflow going to the pool either in a waterfall type arrangement for spill over or a set of pipes for an under deck to pool side wall overflow.
    Usually in normal operating, you'd have Pool skimmer/ Spa Main drain at a 50/50 setting and spa return a tad over 50% open, the pool return being just under 50%. That takes water from both but adds a bit more to the spa so that it overflows into the pool. It helps clean the spa and pool's surface of debris and keeps both circulated and heated . This setting is for use when you're just using the pool or when no activity is taking place out there at all. It's up to you if you want the pool main drain open, you'll just have to balance the other settings to get that spa to pool overflow happening.
    If you want the spa heated, you open the spa suction ( main drain) and spa return, close the pool skimmer/main drain and pool returns. This allows only the spa to circulate, sanitize and heat. Otherwise you'd be trying to heat the whole pool up to 104 F which would be plenty expensive. :)
    By the sounds of it, the "pool cleaner" you have is a suction based one and probably plugs into a fitting on the pool wall. Unless you're actually using the cleaner, keep that valve shut.
    Keep an eye on your pool/spa after changing the valve settings. If you mess up, you'll see the spa start draining. You don't want it to run dry. Just balance the valves to get that overflow for "normal" operations. I'd mark it on the plumbing with a magic marker so that it's a quick changeover next time too. A lot is also going to depend on how everything was plumbed up too ( number of 90's and length of runs). You may have to experiment a bit to get the right settings.

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