New pool owner looking for advice - UPDATE

[Warren Ezra]

Thanks to all for the good advice!

I tried creating a diagram of my pump and filter but found my drawing skills to be just a notch or two behind my pool maintenance skills so I just uploaded a regular photo of my setup to

Please take a look if you have a moment.

My biggest concern right now is the fact that everything now seems "backwards". I spoke with the pool guy who claims he didn't touch anything, but he "also thought it was strange that just the spa was running when he was here".

To reiterate, when the timer for the filter kicks off, the spa starts gurgling, but the waterfall from the spa doesn't start and the kreepy-krawley in the pool does not start. The spa does not get hot. If I then push the spa button, the kreepy does kick on, and the waterfall starts. Also the heater kicks on, but the spa still doesn't get warm!

Anyway, here are specific answers to some of your questions:

I live in Southern California (Inland Empire).

I think the consensus is to drain the pool. I believe I do live in a high (calcium?) area, as I do have quite a bit of white buildup on the pool walls and even the patio around the pool.

I was told that the pool could come out of the ground and if I was going to drain it to do so before the "rainy season". That must be about now, 'cause we got about an inch of rain in the last couple weeks. However, I will probably wait until March or so now before I drain.

It is a plaster pool and I have probably three or four stains on the bottom, each about 2x3 foot in size. Not real bad, I was just thinking if I was going to drain it anyway, that might be something to take care of.

Again, my immediate concern is getting the timer back on track with filtering. My kids swear they didn't touch anything, so I still believe the pool guy changed one of the levers back there thinking he was helping. If anyone could help out with identifying the levers I'd much appreciate. I've put comments on what I know about the pump on the web page.

Thanks again for everyone's input!

WEZ

[HA HA Budys Here]

It seems that due to the dual-duty the filter and heater must perform, there is a "hiearchy" involving what happens, and when...

For instance - the system is probably set up to heat and filter the spa (in automatic mode - no waterfall just maintainence filtering) ONLY when the pool isn't utilizing the filter and heater.

So the timer clicking "off" actually frees up the equipment to filter and heat the spa. Thusly, the automatic valves which divert the water from the pool outlets to the spa outlet occurs when the timer to filter the pool expires.

Manually choosing spa is more of a "we're going to use it" option so some water is diverted over the falls. When the filter is diverting to the pool, the heater will respond to the "pool temp" setting, and when diverted to the spa, the "spa temp" setting.

The heater should work when the spa is on automatic (pool not filtering) but sometimes heaters won't work properly unless the flow switch inside the heater detects adequate water flow through the heat exchanger. You might not have adequate water flow unless the waterfall is also on... check that enough jets are open in the spa when on automatic mode.

[Jim Thompson]

[snip]

I can't tell what brand of valves you have, but my Jandy valves have a toggle switch to set their "polarity"... mid position = valve doesn't respond to commands, maintains present position; up and down choose between clockwise and counter-clockwise response to a controller command.

It's possible that you have a switch thrown the wrong direction... periodically my pool maintenance fellow decides to over-ride the controller and screws everything up :-(

...Jim Thompson