Steam boiler refill

[michael]

After so many years my steam boiler is taking too long to refill; I have to shut off the machine before I reach the boiler shut off point and then turn on again to get the boiler full. I assume some line on the way to the boiler is clogged.

Could anyone point me to where to look for the clog and how to clean it

Many thanks

[chas]

Normal Caveats: Unplug machine, disconnect water supply, let machine completely cool to room temperature...

There are a three places the clog can be. Murphy's Law dictates that no matter what order you check these in, the clog will be in the last one.

1) Several folks have had their clog be right where the cold water connection enters the steam boiler. You will see that the tube connection, which you must remove, goes into a 90 degree metal fitting. (After removing the nut you may have to really pull on the tube to get it off.) That 90 degree bend causes a disturbance in the force and minerals build up there. You will need to stick a pipe cleaner or stiff piece of wire in there and clean it out.

steam.jpg (44.72 KiB) Viewed 7805 times

2) Next, if that doesn't help, check the gicleur valve which is attached beneath the solenoid valve that turns on water flow to the steam boiler. Remove the nut at the end of this arrow and clean out inside there. Don't remove the screw that goes through the nut, just remove the nut. This is what clogged the one time it happened to me.

gicleur.jpg (47.2 KiB) Viewed 7805 times

3) The only other place folks have reported clogging is a stainless steel filter screen on the input side of the boiler fill solenoid. By unscrewing this connection you should be able to pull out this screen and clean it. I don't have a photo of this so I included a drawing from the parts manual. The green arrow points to the filter. In order to connect its location with the above photo, I added a red arrow that points to the gicleur in the above photo.

filterscreen.jpg (382.34 KiB) Viewed 7805 times

If you don't have room to get the tools on either of the connections for steps 2 or 3 you will need to remove the solenoid valve. Unscrew the nut on top of the solenoid, Pull up on the solenoid to remove it. There is no need to remove the wire connection on the side.

[shrewd1]

I too think that my steam boiler is taking too long to refill, I tried to get to the gicleur valve but I think my machine (2011) has one of the newer gicleur valve assemblies fitted as the gicleur valve does not come.

I have looked at the steam boiler 90 degree bend connection and have taken the water hose out to see if there was a blockage in the hose but didn’t see a blockage there either.

I need to take the inlet valve assembly right off now so that I can take apart the solenoid valve to descale but before I do that I am wondering what is a long refill time for the steam boiler.

If I draw one full cup (350ml or 12ounces) of hot water from the steam boiler then I timed the pump taking 41 seconds to refill the steam boiler before the pump stopped, Is this an acceptable time to refill that amount of water or is the steam boiler taking too long to refill?

I am using a flojet bottled water pump btw.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[shrewd1]

Just to answer my question for the interest of the forum, The rotoflow pumo used in the S1 is called CA054 Compact.
The PDF document relating to the compact rotoflow specs is: http://www.chichesterpumps.co.uk/media/ ... 611_Ed.pdf

Reading the flowrate from the chart I think at 10 bar the CA054 model is capable of running around 38 litres of water per hour, So that'll probably be around 0.633 litres a minute which seems in line with my machine.