Fixing Leak - Weird heater plumbing

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anomale

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Aug 23, 2011
65
Riverside, CA
Pool Size
26000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
CircuPool RJ-60 Plus
Hello, My friend just bought a house and has a couple leaks on his plumbing. I went over to take a look and the way it's plumbed seems weird to me. I'm not a plumber so maybe the way it's plumbed is ok but wanted a professional opinion.

It looks like the piping that goes in and out of the heater is not done correctly. There is a leak on the input and output so I'm going to cut the whole section out and re-pipe it. I'm just confused by the area in the red circle. Seems like that shouldn't be connected allowing water to flow through there as it would not allow that much water to flow through the heater?
Or is this correct? I'm thinking of adding a heater bypass when I cut the section out and re-do it

The heater heats up the spa so it works but doesn't look right.

g-pool1.jpgg-pool2.jpg
 
This actually looks like it was done by someone in HVAC. Technically there is a spa bypass and you have the relief valve. It doesn’t look like what we normally see but doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I don’t know half the stuff on the manifold. We should ask @swamprat69
 
Hard to tell from the photos, but I am curious as to why a pressure relief valve is needed on an open system?? There is no chance for excessive pressure due to water expansion as the water temperature rises, as there is in a closed system such as a modern boiler and there is no expansion tank. Also, what is with the piping mix of PVC, copper and iron/steel??? Is one of the leaks at the copper to PVC Tee by the "heater out" label and tape measure in the first photo that looks like it has been epoxied for a previous leak?
 
swamprat69 said:
Hard to tell from the photos, but I am curious as to why a pressure relief valve is needed on an open system?? There is no chance for excessive pressure due to water expansion as the water temperature rises, as there is in a closed system such as a modern boiler and there is no expansion tank. Also, what is with the piping mix of PVC, copper and iron/steel??? Is one of the leaks at the copper to PVC Tee by the "heater out" label and tape measure in the first photo that looks like it has been epoxied for a previous leak?
Click to expand...
Yes the copper to pvc connection is leaking pretty bad. Looks like the previous owner jerry rigged it with epoxy instead of using a pvc to copper union (is there a better way to do it other than a union? ) The heater is a huge unit probably 4ft cubed runs off of propane. Maybe I had the heater input/output switched in my picture? and the pressure relief is on the output side I dont know. I can have him take more pictures if you wanted to see something specific
 
By shutting off the brass valve it would bypass system. But most likely would trigger the pressure switch which would still allow the heater to fire and is probably the reason for the relief valve to open if such a thing happened. But if none of that is needed I would probably try and find the header assembly and do all rigid and redo the bypass.
 
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