noisy air intake for spa

I just moved into a house with an in-ground pool and spa. The spa has 4 air intakes around it, and when I have the pump running there's this REALLY REALLY loud gurgling/sucking sound from those intakes. The landlord said "Oh it's always that loud" but I just can't believe it's really supposed to be this loud. The gurgling isn't constant...sometimes it's just got the whooshing/sucking sound I expect from a spa (which is loud, but you can talk over it) but when the gurgling starts (it can last anywhere from a couple seconds to a couple minutes) you have to shout to be heard.

I'm guessing the intakes are either semi-clogged or kinked or in some way partially obstructing the free flow of air. Is that likely? If so, what can I do about it? If not, what else might it be?

TIA,
gunther

 

Gunther, Is the spa gunite or fiberglass? Do the pool & spa share the same equipment? When you say air intakes- are they at the top of the spa & do they have screw tops?

 

The spa is fiberglass and it shares the pump/filter with the pool. The air intakes are ground level...there are four fairly evenly spaced around the periphery of the spa about 4-6 inches away from the edge of the spa itself. They appear to consist of a small (about 1/2 inch) diameter PVC pipe that goes into the ground which is surrounded by some sand/gravel stuff, and on top of that is a white plastic cover with a hole in the center. So the plastic cover is even with the ground line. On one intake the PVC pipe is directly under the hole in the plastic cover, on the others it's offset by up to a couple inches.

One more piece of info: last night I had the pump running and the valves to the spa and pool were both open wide. The spa was not nearly as noisy (not as much gurgling) as before. When I closed the valves to the pool, the spa got a lot noisier...basically it went back to being as noisy as I described in my original post.

I believe the spa/pool were installed in the early 80s if that's relevant....

 

All spa air intakes make some sort of noise. You have giving me a pretty good description but hard to say without seeing it.
There are a lot of spa jets out there, too many to list. Typically what you have is water being forced through a jet body from the pump. At the top of the jet body there is another inlet for the air line or ring. As water passes through the jet body it pulls air into the water.
It sounds like you have an air line going straight up to the deck from each jet? I would check to see if your pool filter & pool pump basket are clean? Sometimes the amount of water coming through the jets is not strong enough to pull all the water out of the air line. This can cause a gurgling sound.

 

The noise IS completely normal. MOST spas though have a valve on the air intake pipe, and inside that valve is a piece of very porous foam that the air is sucked through. The foam acts as a muffler.

 

hi Gunther, thats the old way of plumbing the air intake to the spa jets, if you can remove the 1/2 " caps the ones with holes in them , remove them put clean sponge in them large enough not to go down the 1/2" pipe but large enough to fill the cap drilling a few more holes in the caps would be good also this should quiet the little bugger.

steve