This post is more of a thank you to all the great information and resources this group of enthusiasts provides. I don't post often, mostly because the HB forums have been able to help me and answer my questions without having to ask. So it's with my latest issue/challenge I feel compelled to share this - to "give back" a little, if you will. Now to the story....

While performing my quarterly descale, my machine tripped the GFCI it was on. Initially thought it may have been brought on by running the pump and triggering the heating element in too rapid of succession. I turned it off to cool down a bit - a good excuse to let the descaler soak and do its thing. After an hour or so, I fired her up again and 'click' - GFCI tripped again. Reset - 'click.' I knew I had a short somewhere. Time to open the box and hit the boards here.

First items on the checklist were the obvious:

• check for leaks - none
  check my connections - all solid contact, no corrosion
  check my wire insulation - good to go

Next items all came via recommendations in posts here (didn't save the list to link, but search for 'heating element' and they'll pop up):

• check the boiler level - it was good
  check the thermal fuse - had to relearn how to use a multimeter, but continuity was good
  check the resistance on the heating element - no continuity and dynamic resistance readings all over the board, starting to think it's the culprit

Now that I had a likely suspect, I decided to go ahead and pull the element to check it out. Again, via the great info on the boards, I discovered that Isomac used pipe dope to seal all the fittings and that a 30mm socket and an impact wrench would do the trick. Fortunately I had both, so I laid the machine on its side, fired up my air compressor and three gentle taps from the driver was all it took. (BTW - a lot of these posts mention manual impact wrenches, but my pneumatic easily did the trick without torquing any of the plumbing.)

Here's what I found:



This is apparently what happens when a 1350W element shorts out in a boiler full of water. All I could think of when I saw this was how fortunate I was that I had my machine on a protected circuit. If you don't already have your machine on a GFCI or otherwise protected circuit hopefully this will convince you to do so.

So, now while I sit and wait for the new parts to come I figure it would be a great time to double check the health of my boiler and do a more thorough cleaning. Hard to get a good picture, but she really doesn't look so bad. A little scale build up near the water inlet and outlets, but nothing a good overnight soak (cold - obviously) in Urnex shouldn't fix.




Again, all of this - all of the info I found on how to troubleshoot, what to test, tips and tricks on how to - came from all of you that share your knowledge and learnings through these boards. So thank you all for this lovely wealth of info and support. You're really a great lot - cheers!

Nice pics . . . admirable attitude.

You should always descale this particular machine as you did . . . resting on its side.