Spa draining to pool level

[SpaceCowboy86]

Greetings. I’m a new pool owner with a fairly complicated setup. My current issue is that the spa will drain to the level of the pool. The spa is fairly large (12 person) and it drains about 5 inches an hour or more. The spa has three pumps that create an overflow feature into the pool. The spa was draining shortly after I moved in and replacing the Jandy check valves did the trick. That was about about 4 months ago. I replaced the three valves again this time around but that did not fix the problem. The spa does have pop ups but I am unable to find a check valve above ground other than the ones ones on the pumps.

I have had 2 pool guys out and they haven’t been able to identify the problem. Below is a list of things I have tried.

Replaced the three Jandy valves on the spa overflow pumps.

The spa had two pressure relief valves. One of the pool guys took the liberty to cut these out and cap off the location they were, but the problem remains. He thought that this was the reason for the spa drain and said they were unnecessary, hard to find, and expensive. After a conversation with a Leslie’s employee, I think they may have been a safety feature. I was extremely unhappy and I am considering finding a new maintenance company for not asking before they removed them. This can be a topic for a future post but any advice on this would be appreciated, especially if this is the source of the problem.

I noticed the actuator that switches between spa and pool was cracked open and not always completing a full turn. I was able to open the valve up myself, re-align it, lube it up, and it seems to be functioning normally at this time. However, the spa continues to drain.

I can hear an audible sound of water flowing through what is labeled as one of two cleaners long after all equipment is shut off. It’s a little hard to tell exactly where it’s flowing through but this is my best guess. I haven’t seen anything in my research about this being a possible source for the spa draining but it’s something I noticed.

Any advice is much appreciated. I’m learning an enormous amount about pool maintenance but this one has me pulling my hair out trying to figure out.