I bought my spa used, and it worked fine for 3 months. Then, I drained, cleaned, and refilled the spa. I overdosed the spa with calcium hardness increaser, and drained, cleaned, and refilled it again within a week. After this, one of my two jet pumps has been flowing very little water.

The pump in question has two outputs. One is the 1-1/2 inch output that feeds all the jets in the seats. The second output is a 3/4 inch tube just above the pump intake. This tube then runs to the filter, heater, and circulation pump, and finally exits through one jet at the bottom of the tub.

When I turn on this pump, the single jet fed by the 3/4 inch output runs at full power. The jets fed by the 1-1/2 inch output will either flow nothing, or very little water. Sometimes, some jets will flow while others will not. Also, sometimes the air balance valves will function and put air bubbles in the jet output, other times they won't.

I have drained this tub twice this week now, looking for the cause. I have disconnected the input and output tubes, and I have fished as far as I can through the tubes looking for obstructions. There are no obstructions that I can detect. I have also taken apart the wet end of the pump. The inside of the pump is completely clean. The impeller looks fine, and the motor spins freely. I have even run the pump with the wet end off, watching the impeller turn. Although my eyes are not a finely calibrated tachometer, the motor appears to be turning at roughly the speed you would expect a typical AC motor to spin (About 3600 RPM)

I have called Recreational Factory Warehouse a couple of times now, and the first thing everybody says is there is an air pocket in the system. I don't believe this is the case. I have cleared an air pocket from the other pump one time, and this does not appear to be the case here.

Any help would be appreciated.

to your house the absolute first thing I would do is power this sucker up and put my finger over the heater/filter output jet, and literally FORCE the pump to pump water out of the seat jets. An air pocket sounds exactly like what you're talking about - (along with what others have told you). Your pump runs fine, it's obviously not sucking air from anywhere, and you've tested it yourself... (done everything that everyone `else` is afraid to do! " title="Smile" /> ) This is an issue of hydraulics. It's what you've got to think about. Water in an environment like this operates so much differently than anything else most have ever encountered and it's like super picky, even under pressure. Air locks/pockets are a nightmare of a problem to a lot of spa owners simply because of the way they're plumbed and 99.99% of them show up after refilling. To you, it may not make sense, but if you think differently, (like you can stick a glass upside down in a sink full of water and it remains full of air), then you can get a grasp of what happens when you refill an empty spa that once was full of water everywhere, but now has all kinds of empty voids left in the plumbing. It's like the air pocket in my car after I've driven it into a river upside down thing.... " title="Wink" /> If you've got the ability to try the old finger over the jet trick, then you might want to consider it... post back what you find out on this. But you may have to give it about a minute or so. Air pockets don't go away in seconds, I've seen them take 2-3 minutes to clear out, and then I have to drain it back down and fill it up and show the homeowner how to do it before I leave! " title="Shocked" /> Yeah... Try repeat visits to the same customer every 3 months! For the same airlock because they forgot how to do it! Every spa's different, and if I'm wrong on this, I'll eat my jets fer ya! Lemme know either way. Thanks for posting, I look forward to hearing about this again. (Eventually I've learned to love these kinds of problems because they're so doggone quirky!).

Thanks for your quick reply!

It sure seems more like an obstruction/bad motor/bad impeller than an air pocket becuase it is actually flowing water. But like you say, "this operates so much differently than anything else most have ever encountered " I know it looks like the biggest pluming nightmare I have ever seen in there, and I have a mechanical engineering degree and design commercial refrigerators for grocery stores for 2 years!

The water is cold right now, because I couldn't justify heating the water if I was just going to drain it again. If you think covering the heater jet will force water out of the others, I will turn the heater on and let you know tomorrow night what happens.

It's a real dog if the water's super cold because you gotta put your arm in some of these things almost all the way up to your neck to plug the hole! But that's the best way to get these things jump started after a drain down. Nice thing is, after going thru it once, you'll never forget! Lol! " title="Cool" />

Well, I was unable to completely cover the heater jet. It has what could best be described as a guard bar, so you can not stick anything in it. The best I could do was squish one of the dog's balls up against it, blocking it for the most part!

This had absolutely no effect on the flow from the other jets. Then I started playing with some of the jets, turning each one off until bubbles came out of one. Then I would turn on another and bubbles would come out of it. Turning on a third made all the bubbles stop. After screwing around for about a half hour, the best I could do was 3 out of 5 blowing bubbles. Even with just one jet blowing bubbles, it didn't flow nearly as hard as any one of the other 10 connected to the other pump.

My best guess at this point is there is still a reduced flow, but I don't know what to try next.

Mike,
I've enabled uploads of pics on this board, if you've got a digital camera, do me a favor and take a couple of pictures of the pump and plumbing (overall) so I can see what you're dealing with underneath this thing.

If I can see how it's made underside, then I can tell you exactly what to expect topside.

Now if you're using one of those 5 megapixel nikon jobs, please get the pics down to 1024 or less max pixel resolution with a file size of less than 200k. Finally, if you can do this, be sure you upload the pics with some random file names - mike03442A.jpg, mike03442B.jpg.. you know the drill. Unforunately all the pic uploads go into a common directory here. (Need to rewrite the phpbb routine for file uploads).

Unfortunately, real force is necessary to STOP that water from coming out of that crazy heater/filtration discharge jet. The little cross-bar or whatever it is over it is there to prevent kids from sticking pencils and whatever inside and causing an overtemp situation in the heater. But if you can find a way to do it, just do it. If the water was warm, I'd get in it and find a way to make it happen (poor dog would drown!). If your spa pump is plumbed the way that you say, then what I'm saying should work. And it's obvious that you've made some progress along the way getting some flow, (air bubbles aren't possible without the water to pull them from the vents), and you're probably like real close to getting this thing solved.

Every spa is different when it comes to airlocks. All it takes, is a spa plumbed on friday at 5pm, where the builder decides to leave an extra foot of hose in some part of it (too lazy to cut it off to the correct length), it creates a loop that wasn't necessary - looks harmless because everything's cool, and it's working good. But drain it down later and now you've got water in the bottom, air at the top. This is a nightmare problem sometimes.

So, see what you can do to get a pic or 2 or 3 uploaded here. Don't need to have it up long, just long enough so I can see what you've got. It'll help a lot!

Thanks.

Sorry it took so long to get these pictures to you. I lost my digital camera, and had to bororw another " title="Crying or Very sad" /> Hopefully, these paint a good picture for you!

Three more...

Three more...

Three more...

Last three!

Thanks for the pics. I had forgotten about that particular circ pump system design with the modified Waterway center discharge pump face plate. In reference to your questions about the differences between the two pumps and impellers, etc...

The pump behind the pack is a Waterway Center Discharge pump, which means that the discharge, is directly inline with the suction. It's normal sometimes for the impeller to go slightly out of round. If it drives you nuts though, here's the replacement for it: Impeller

Your pump #2 is a Vico Side Discharge - (actually looks like a Big Foot pump). Different design and mfgr.

Here's what I'd do to try to fix this.

1. Close down the small ball valve until it's only 1/3 open. (I'd check to be sure that water was still coming out of the heater/filtration jet).

2. Close all jets for pump 2, except the one that's furthest away, and that one leave wide open.

3. Adjust the temperature setting to the lowest possible value. If it's easily accessible, I'd unplug the small grey circulation pump.

4. Start up pump 2, and wait, watch and listen. (Always leave pump 1 off during this procedure)

5. If after a minute or so, nothing changes, I'd close that ball valve down all the way. If no change after about 30 seconds (you'll hear the air and water change as time goes on), I would proceed to the next step.

6. I'd slightly loosen the 1 1/2" pvc coupler fitting that's attached to pump 2 (on top), watch and wait for nothing but water to leak out (yes I do this with the pump running). You have to be very careful only to loosen it enough to make it leak, not more than 1/2 a turn ccw. Tighten it down once it's obviously clear of air.

I doubt you will need to go to step 6. What's happening is that the circ pump is taking the lions share of the water pressure coming from pump 2. That's also why they put in the ball valve - so it can be forced to push the air out of the rest of the system without the circ pump's impact on the system. In any case, it is very important to be sure that the spa's set temperature is set lower than the current temperature of the water. If not, then when you close that ball valve, the heater will boil out very quickly, and you'll destroy your heater. It's either that or disconnect one wire on the pressure switch so it ensures that the spa control won't send power to the heater while the cavity is pressurized with the closed ball valve.

Last thing, the fact that the impeller is a little wobbly isn't such a big deal, but in a marginal circumstance such as this, what will happen is that some of the water pressure in the pump wet end cavity will also find it's way back into the suction part of the impeller. And the cavitation effects don't help either. I'd definitely consider replacing it and the pump seal sometime in the future.

Be very careful with all of this, and let us know how things work out.

Well, I'm afraid that my reduced flow problem still remains. I am able to get bubbles on as many as 3 out of 5 jets with the right combination. Turning on all 5 jets yields very weak flow.

Did you follow all of the above steps to the letter, (especially the one about closing the small ball valve)?

Send me a private message or email on this board, (click the icon below), and send me your phone number. I will call you.

Per you advice, I took the plunge and cut into the pipe to remove the check valve. I sure did have an uneasy feeling digging into my high pressure hose with a dremel cut off tool. When the hose was totally cut off, I looked down into that CHECK VALVE and saw that flapper broken off it's rubber hinge. Every time I started the pump, that round disc would block the water passage. If I turned it off and back on really fast, that disc would probably move into a slightly better position, but still restricting the flow. I bought the 1-1/2" coupler and Clear PVC cement in the Green Oatey can, let it set up for 2 hours, then reassembled with no check valve in line. I fired it up, and instantly got a huge blast of water! Problem solved for a grand total of $4.79 in parts and probably about 40 hours of troubleshooting labor " title="Very Happy" /> I was able to do the whole job by tying up the hose above the water lever. The only water lost was between disconnecting the pump output hose and then covering up the pump output with plastic wrap and a rubber band. I didn't loose much water at all. I would like to thank you for all your help and wonderful advice. You can bet I will be coming back to this website for any parts I may need to purchase in the future.

I went to check this spa out myself... results in graphic below.