Hi All

I haven't posted in a while as there have been no worries. However, I shut the machine down for work in the house and placed the hot machine near a cold door which reeked havoc everywhere. condensation in the led readout and buttons and worse yet the cooled off boiler gasket shrunk down and permitted water to leak on to the motherboard just below. So... After drying everything out cleaning up taking apart and putting back together it works fine EXCEPT the pressure relief valve on the back boiler is not seating and releasing steam non stop.

Perhaps this valve has another name in Coffee Terminology, but I could not find a topic relating to it because I am not sure of its proper name.

My question is can this be fixed remedied or do I have to replace the relief valve with a new one.

I emptied the boiler letting the steam wand empty out all the pressure, with the machine turned off and restarted several times only to find the same problem. I can use the machine by turning it on and making a coffee, then turn it off to stop the constant flow of steam escaping ...

Any tips or hints would be greatly appreciated !!

thanks

You can try taking it off (of course machine should be cold and not under pressure) and cleaning it and soaking for an hour in citric acid solution in case it got scaled up. If that does not help you will need another one. This is considered pretty much standard maintenance item.

thanks for these answers

i didn't know the term, I do in French Van Soupape

Here's the foto image of it

Yes, that's the vacuum breaker, which is a normal replacement item on commercial machines, where they typically last a year or so. They are cheap, and I would just replace it.

A replacement is in the mail...

In the meantime its easy to get to so I'll try cleaning the one I have. I took it apart and Voila there was quite a buildup of "calcaire" ...

I was surprised as i faithfully use a brita and change the filter every 3-4 weeks, on top of the fact that water here is not that hard to begin with...

Makes me start thinking about the insides of the boilers.

This site is the greatest. I tried to call my supplier and he was out, called La Marzocco but there were no technicians around, and then came here and got the response within the hour

Thanks Home-Barista !!

misterdoggy wrote:I took it apart and Voila there was quite a buildup of "calcaire" ...

It might actually be salts or chemicals that your Brita system uses to soften the water. Particularly, if you regularly cycle your machine on and off, mineral residue will build up quickly at that point. Several of us had that problem.

I cleaned it up got the calcaire off the needle, but there is a rubber ring joint at the base that has a "break" in it and it looks kind of tired as well.

It did nothing to stop the steady escape of steam

Oh well, patience is a virtue and I will have to try to be virtuous and wait for the replacement

With all thats happened with the motherboard floating in water and all I'm getting out lucky

misterdoggy wrote:i didn't know the term, I do in French Van Soupape

Vacuum Breaker Valve = Soupape casse-vide
Pressure Relief Valve = Soupape de surpression ou valve de sécurité