First In-Ground Pool. Im Lost!

[Silt]

Ive never had a pool before. My lady and I just bought a new house with a pool and called a pool guy to check everything out before hand. He has a look and says everything is good. We paid him on the promise that if we kept him for regular services we would get 100 dollars off the first visit. We bought the house and called him back for service. This second time, he cleaned the pool with the pole net thing. Neither myself or my lady could be there with him when he finished so we left her mother to stay with him. Upon our return, we found that the pool was still pretty dirty and he had shut off everything.

According to her mother its as follows:

He said that the rest of the dirt in the pool was ground in and he couldn't clean it.

He stated that when he took the large cylinder with the gauge ontop off, the round filters inside were dirty.

He also stated that the cylinder was not correctly put on in the first place and someone had bent the seal and that he couldn't get it back on.

It is at that point that he shut down all the pool equipment and left.

Her mother told him to call us but he wouldn't and told her that she should just tell us. This guy has pissed me off bad. I looked at the equipment myself and it turns out that the cylinder is held on with a metal ring that needs to be ratcheted on and its very close to one of the pipes. To get the ring back on he would have had to put forth effort and work the bolt into the fitting at a very particular angle. I did this without issue. I played around with the valves abit, turned stuff on and off, but only managed to drain the hottub (into the pool. Almost overfilling it) and get the jets going on the pool. Im pretty lost. I can take pics of my valve layout later, but I was hoping for some preliminary remarks.

Thanks!

[Denali]

Hi,

There is no standard layout for valves but for a basic system with pool and spa sharing the same equipment I can give some general info.

You have a valve(s) before the pump that determines where the water is pulled from. You found that one when you drained the spa. You also have a valve(s) after the equipment that determines where the water is returned. In general, water can be returned to the pool or the spa or a combo of both.

The valves allow you to isolate the spa when you are using it and heating it up.

Pictures would certainly help to give you clearer info.