Single boiler water softening report

[sprezzatura Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sprezzatura]

Just a FYI,

Here's the internals of a new-style Silvia boiler that's made daily espresso for 6 months. There is the slightest evidence of scale at the base of the bell.

This machine was descaled twice and always supplied with water that was softened to 4 °dH (71.4 ppm CaCo3/l)
through a Brita C150 and then a 3M Hi-Flo.

TH for my area is 89.24 - 93.00 ppm and a ludicrous amount of chlorine.

[sprezzatura Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sprezzatura]

"If you're not a part of the solution you're a part of the precipitate."

[noidle22 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close noidle22]

"If you're not a part of the solution you're a part of the precipitate."

I replaced the boiler on a V3 with the new V4 boiler the other week, the customer had been using it for around 6 years on filtered tank water.
It had no scale or residues anywhere which was interesting.

Putting a V4 boiler into a V2 this weekend, the machine is from Victoria I think so it will be interesting to see how much scale it has.

[sprezzatura Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sprezzatura]

Hey! Post an image! It's amazing what that tank water does for machine internals, hey?

[sprezzatura Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sprezzatura]

Victoria: I had a call out to a place called Pyramid Hill, 2 group Ruggero, presented with totally plugged limestone in the groups, boiler, t/s pipes. It was 18 months old and written off. .5 micron Bunnings sediment drop in filter [emoji14]

[noidle22 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close noidle22]

Well at least they tried.....with acid or something

[sprezzatura Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sprezzatura]

What is that chunk of crud? Looks like some ferrous stuff.

[saeco_user Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close saeco_user]

What is that chunk of crud? Looks like some ferrous stuff.

When I opened my boiler I found a heap of sludge inside. When it had dried it was a little like grey sand.
I was told that it may have leaked out of the boiler element - some sort of silica insulation that sits between the actual heater element and encasing pipe.
This would make sense in my case as, although the heater element still worked, it kept tripping the earth leakage, indicating water had got into the element.

The "crud" in the photos may be something similar.

[sprezzatura Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sprezzatura]

Interesting - I did not know that.

[Stt022 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Stt022]

Very interesting...

[MrJack Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close MrJack]

Looks like corrosion products or scale to me...

www.fwr.org/copper.pdf

Looking at the freshly exposed copper (pink), possibly added descaler but didn't flush it?