How To Understand Pool Valves

hello everyone it's Josh small the voice for swimming pool science and today I'm visiting an all-fours car show in Southern California when max Hoffman began importing the little sports car from Germany in the early 1950s to the United States America fell in love and never looked back while we take a few brief moments to enjoy these beautifully restored classics our main focus today is helping you better understand the valves on your pool plumbing and pool equipment let's get started before we start turning valves let's establish a few basics that'll lay out on this equipment set no matter how simple or complex the pool plumbing can be divided into two sections the suction side where the pump pulls water from the pool and the pressure side where the pump pushes water through the filter heater salt sell or other components and then back to the pool now let's take a look at some valves so that we can better understand their purpose and operation here we have a 3 port diverter style valve notice the tab that says off this indicates which port will be shut off when the handle is turned the curved red line indicates the position of the diverter itself in this case the main drain line is fully open and the sewer line is about half closed down causing a majority of the water flow to come from the main drain side for a ball valve like this it's pretty simple when the handle is perpendicular to the pipe the valve is closed and water cannot travel through when the handle is parallel to the pipe the valve is fully open unless your equipment is significantly above or below water level and you're going to do maintenance it's never a good idea to close the valves on the inlet or on the outlet side of the pump here we see what happens when you choke off the pumps water supply by closing the last valve on the inlet or suction side of the pump cavitation starts to occur and filter pressure drops this will eventually cause damage to the pump itself and warping of the plumbing on the outlet or pressure side closing off valves will result in a spike in pressure pump and/or filter damage as well as warping or ruptures in the plumbing due to heat and pressure this is known as deadheading the pump now that we have a good idea of the basics let's take a look at a pool spa combo where two bodies of water share the same pump heater and filter there's also an in-floor cleaning system in the mix here you now I know there's a little more going on here than the first equipment set we looked at but we can still divide it up into its pieces all the plumbing attached to the front of the pub highlighted in blue with our cutting-edge special-effects tools his suction or the inlet where the pump sucks water from the pool everything in red well that's the pressure side where the pump is pushing water back to the pool we add another layer to this with the suction and return lines for the pool and the suction and return lines for the spa for repairing leaky valves check out the link above and get a rebuild kit at the link in the description all right let's start playing with valves our first setup we'll do is for running the pool only will close the spa side of our three port valve on the suction side then close down the spa side on the return header this is handy if you're specifically trying to heat the pool or if the pool needs increased circulation let's recycle the same piece of video here and show you spillover it's as easy as closing the suction from the spa and closing the return to the pool this will pull water from the pool and return it to the spa elevated spa setups this creates a nice waterfall and it circulates water in both the pool in the spa here willow helps demonstrate the direction of water flow this is a great default setup because in most cases the spa spillway takes the place of the skimmer transferring floating debris to the pool it also allows for circulation of both bodies of water at the same time and it's aesthetically pleasing here we'll shift the valves to draw and return water exclusively to and from the spa this is the setup you want to enjoy your hot tub or spa on a cold day or to loosen up tight muscles or fecal matter fire up your heater give it 45 or so minutes and you'll have the makings of some good human stew okay on this spa we have the option to divert return water through the returns or through the therapy Jets the final configuration we'll look at today is what we call spa drain this is where we divert most or all of our suction to the spa and return all water to the pool on our example pool where the pool and spar at the same grade the water level will drop quickly as the water level slowly rises in the pool but the pool water will eventually spill back into the spa on an elevated spot set up the entire spa will drain into the pool if the pool isn't large enough to accommodate all the spa water it may overflow this setup can be useful for cleaning out a spa fairly quickly and the spa can be refilled by setting the valves into spa fill or spillover configuration for normal day-to-day operation ensuring that both bodies of water have circulation is key you should experiment with fine-tuning your valves to determine what works best for your pool while taking care to avoid cavitation or deadheading the pump depending on your equipment setup you may also have the option to divert water to the return header or to an in floor cleaning system on this pool the valve is just after the water passes through the filter the aerator which is clearly a word I can't spell is controlled by this smaller ball valve it serves to cool the water in the heat of summer and can also raise pH too to increase co2 outgassing check out our video on pH and alkalinity in the link above for more on that subject on this equipment setup we've slipped a 3 port valve in between the filter in the pump that allows us the ability to drain excess water vacuum to waste or feed the bushes old pool water when they're naughty naughty bushes we here at swimming pool science hope you found this video helpful let us know in the comments if you have any thoughts or feedback and we know many of you have automated pool systems in will share some light on electronic valve actuators in a future episode if you found this video helpful take a moment to explore a catalogue of some cool science how-to videos thanks for watching guys and don't forget to Like share and subscribe

Channel: Swimming Pool Science

Views: 126,356

Keywords: Pentair, Hayward, Jandy, Jacuzzi, 3 way valve, 3 port diverter valve, pool valves, how to adjust pool valves, how to, Josh Maule the voice, Swimming Pool Science, Pool Spa combo, Shared pool equipment, Arizona Pool Service, Arizona pool repair, Pool School 101, Biltmore pool service, Arcadia Pool service, How to fix a pool, how to repair a pool

Id: GGJjdn6vjvg

Length: 8min 42sec (522 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 22 2019