I've had no issues with my CC jr thru last week when I went to do a cooling flush and noticed the water dance wasn't as robust. The pressure read around 0.8 and the brew head temps were only about 180f. I opened the water tap and the water just flowed out- not as a sputter as it had done all the other times. I increased the boiler pressure back up to about 1.2 and it worked fine thru this morning when I had the same symptoms. We shut the machine down for the first time since I increased the boiler pressure yesterday but turned it back on last night so it had plenty of time to come back up to pressure. I haven't noticed any leaks in there and some mornings last week it would come up to pressure just like normal, sometimes it would come up to a lower pressure.

Any thoughts?

Sounds like a failing pressurestat to me.

First of all why would you do a cooling flush by opening the hot water tap??? Second if you pull water from the hot water tap you are introducing cold water into your steam boiler. That will drop your pressure in your steam boiler. To do a cooling flush you need to pull water through the group not the hot water spigot.

Not to state the obvious, but could it be false pressure? If you open the steam valve and the pressure drops suddenly, then it's possible the vacuum breaker is sticking.

chris wrote:First of all why would you do a cooling flush by opening the hot water tap??? Second if you pull water from the hot aware tap you are introducing cold wetter into your steam boiler. That will drop your pressure in your steam boiler. To do a cooling flush you need to pull water through the group not the hot water spigot.

First of all that was just a mistype Chris- the hot water was turned on just to see if there was pressure in the boiler, if the water sputtered or flowed. This was after I noticed the pressure gauge being low. Second, I am familiar with what a cooling flush is. I'll edit my original post for clarity. Any thoughts as to what is happening?

HB wrote:Not to state the obvious, but could it be false pressure? If you open the steam valve and the pressure drops suddenly, then it's possible the vacuum breaker is sticking.

Excellent point.

HB wrote:Not to state the obvious, but could it be false pressure? If you open the steam valve and the pressure drops suddenly, then it's possible the vacuum breaker is sticking.

It drops slowly when the steam is opened but my brew temps aren't as high starting off as they were. It seemed to work better since I turned the pressure up (as suggested by a tech at CC) but after a cycle down then back up this am the boiler pressures aren't coming all the way up and aren't maintained after a shot or two (as evident in the brew temps nosing off). One session the temps will be normal, I'll go down to check it later and I'll have very little steam and the pressure will be down to less than 0.5 after a cooling flush (thru the group head).

Still sounds like a flakey pressurestat to me. But wonder if auto-fill could be a factor, filling to different levels, hmmm. But seems even then the pressure should still come up to be the same. I'd replace the pstat, if that didn't correct the symptom worst would be then would have a spare pstat when it does fail, because all pstats fail eventually.

What makes no sense is why the steam boiler pressure would drop as a result of doing a cooling flush? You need to call our service department while standing in front of the machine so they can have perform some tests to determine what is wrong. You very well could have a solenoid valve not seating and over filling the boiler. That would give you steam pressure that would drop rapidly plus very wet steam.

Thanks Chris, I'll call in tomorrow again. Btw, the steam is pretty dry after the condensation is flushed out but it doesn't last long and yes, the boiler pressure does decrease after the cooling flushes and a shot or two. I'll call tomorrow, thanks!