Hi:
As the recent proud owner of a Salvatore One Black, I have a question about maintaining the boiler. It seems to me that an HX boiler continuously takes in water, with minerals, and puts out only steam (no minerals). It seems that this would constantly concentrate the minerals in the water, leading to calcification. I use good water with about 40 PPM TDS. Should I be concerned? The One Black does not have an easy way to drain the boiler. The hot water wand feed line is situated about at the middle of the boiler, so I'm lucky if I can draw 3 ounces of water out before I just get steam. Sometimes the boiler fill will kick in so I can get another few ounces, sometimes not. Guess it's right at the fill line. Why wouldn't they put the feed at the bottom of the boiler??

How often do other HX owners drain and refresh the boiler water?
How often do you descale?

Thanks, Dave

The boiler used in the One Black APPEARS to be from the same mfg that supplies Quickmill with boilers for their line of hx machines. For sure, Salvatore adds fittings to the shell however the end plate opposite the heater connection has a sufficient number of plugged holes such that a nice drain arrangement could be added.



But - before I made any modifications, I would consult with Salvatore re warranty implications.

Only 3 oz from the hot water tap? That doesn't seem right. What good would that do? One thing you could do if you didn't want to make any mods is drain as much water as possible periodically, than fill the boiler with distilled water or very soft water to dilute the minerals.

Read the "Insanely Long Water FAQ" (http://big-rick.com/coffee/waterfaq.html), then scratch your head and read it again.

erics wrote:The boiler used in the One Black APPEARS to be from the same mfg that supplies Quickmill with boilers for their line of hx machines. For sure, Salvatore adds fittings to the shell however the end plate opposite the heater connection has a sufficient number of plugged holes such that a nice drain arrangement could be added.

Actually, Salvatore fabricates the boilers in his shop, from large copper pipes. There are some nice spots in the end plate to attach a water tap to, which are near the bottom. That's why I'm mystified that the hot water tap is attached to the other side, near the center of the boiler. That severely limits the amount of water that can be drawn. The attachment is so high that sometimes it doesn't even trigger the auto-fill. (!??)

I must admit, I'm tempted to attach the hot water wand to one of the lower holes, but I'm pretty sure Salvatore wouldn't support such an action. Maybe someday I'll ask.

Water taps are normally installed above the heating element. That way you cannot purge so much water you expose the heating elements. If you were to do that, you would explode the heater, literally. They will super heat, swell and POW!. That is why the water tap is mounted high in the boiler.