You are going to be looking for a replacement o-ring and what you might find at a plumbing supply house MAY NOT be satisfactory. Will it fit - yes; will it withstand boiler temps over the long haul - unlikely. Certainly Bella Barista should be able to direct you to an Isomac dealer nearby.

Paolo

I had the impression removing the element can be a real bear - glad to hear it didn't put up much of a fight. Do you happen to have the older nickled-copper boiler or the stainless steel one?

I agree a plumbing o-ring (often made of butyl) would not hold up on a boiler. This thread gives some input on the dangers of teflon tape, the desirability of a teflon washer, and the use of teflon cord, available at the plumbing shop. Never tried the cord myself.

Used Isomac Millenium II- no manual- getting started questions

Hi Guys and thanks again for the interest and comments.

I'm now back up and running but as promised I've taken some pictures to show you what I did.

My plumbers merchant was as usual really helpful and I came away with four washers, 2 x felt and 2 x rubber. All are heat resistant and will withstand high temperatures but the felt ones are apparently more heat resistant than the rubber ones. Total cost for four washers was a big fat "zero".

In Pic 1 you can see where the boiler was leaking - you can just see a drop of water around the immersion heater element.



Pic 2 shows the damaged washer on the heater element.



Pic 3 shows the order of the washers before re-assembly as rubber washers should go inside a recess so they don't squash out everywhere. I put some PTFE tape around the threads and added a felt washer on for good measure just to be sure.



In Pic 4 (after re-assembly) the felt washer is visible but the rubber one is hidden under the recess.



Pic 5 - Because of the extra thickness caused by the felt washer the heater element didn't screw in quite as far as it originally did, but only by less than a quarter of a turn. As the thread on the element/nut is quite long there is no chance of any leaks or the element becoming loose.



Since the repair not a drop of water has leaked and after being turned off overnight I was pleased to find a dry counter top this morning so I can consider the repair a success - and all for free!

Thanks again for the support and I hope others will tackle this simple job - after working out how to get the case off that is.

Best regards,

Paolo

Cheers Paolo

I see you have the SS boiler like mine. Thanks for the very helpful pics to add to the HB "database".

Nice to see you achieved the goal without exceeding your repair budget.

Hi Gary,

Yes it's the SS boiler - sorry I forgot to confirm this.

Whilst working on the machine I also took pictures of the case and I thought I'd post these too as they show the edge of the cover and the groove in which it sits when the case is fully assembled. It is one thing to say in the instructions that you must pull the cover out as you lift it from the main unit but if you aren't sure as to what is going on in there it can make it difficult to know if you are doing it right.

The first picture shows the inside of the left side of the cover and the edge which needs to drop into the groove on the main unit.



This picture shows the groove into which the case cover sits when assembled. Obviously the right hand side is dealt with in the same way.



I hope these pictures help as I know that I would have liked to have had them when I was taking the cover off.

Cheers,

Paolo