Vacuum breaker - serviceable?

by **Ozark_61** on Sat Nov 08, 2008 7:11 pm

My vacuum breaker on my ecm giotto is leaking / hissing. Anyone know if it's something that can be simply descaled or re-gasketed?

Cheers
Geoff

http://users.rcn.com/erics/ · by **erics** on Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:53 pm

Geoff -

See the 5th post down in this thread:

resolved-anita-boiler-and-steam-troubles-t7711.html

Vacuum breaker valves are pretty inexpensive from a variety of sources so it may pay to order a new one especially if you have some other goodies in mind. Send me a pic of yours at erics@erols.com and I'll see what I have.

by **shadowfax** on Sat Nov 08, 2008 10:00 pm

I took mine apart a few weeks ago, and when I was removing the rubber o-ring to clean the metal parts, I broke the o-ring in half. A trip to home depot and $4 later, I had a little box full of o-rings that were a pretty good match. It took awhile to find them in that awfully laid-out store, but it worked. Later in the week I ordered a replacement, which I have on hand now in case anything goes wrong, but I found that disassembling, cleaning, and replacing that o-ring did the trick for me.

by **mhoy** on Sun Nov 09, 2008 12:15 am

Absolutely. However they are also inexpensive to replace.

Clean it out with citric acid and get a heat resistant O ring. My Elektra also had a soft copper washer between the copper tank and the vacuum breaker. I got a spare O-ring from a guy I had helped out in Montreal. Pretty decent folks hang out around here.

If you do replace it, when was the last time you replaced your group head gasket? Yearly will prevent it from turning from an easy job to a frustratingly hard job.

Mark

by **cafeIKE** on Sun Nov 09, 2008 12:24 am

Kind of like sparkplugs: Once you've gone to trouble to get it out, replaced the seal, is it worth the trouble to put back?

by **Ozark_61** on Sun Nov 09, 2008 2:52 am

I buy several gh gaskets for the e61 head at a time... but that's nothing to do with the vacuum breaker though... Does Home Cheapo carry the heat resistant o rings? If it's just that, I'll replace the o-ring and descale it.

by **trzynkaa** on Sun Nov 09, 2008 3:06 am

High temperature o-rings....

Sorry, I do not expect home depot (or most hardware stores) to stock viton or silicon o'rings. Buna is the standard material and not really suited for a vacuum breaker on a boiler. However there are o-ring distributors on the net that list viton o-rings. Google "viton o ring".
For example: http://www.applerubber.com lists viton and other high temperature o-rings.
Andrew

by **Ozark_61** on Sun Nov 09, 2008 1:29 pm

Any idea of the size needed?

by **Ozark_61** on Mon Nov 10, 2008 3:15 am

Actually - does anyone know if this is it?

http://www.espressoparts.com/product/W10836/W10836__14_Brass_Antisiphon_Valve__L190.html

by **mhoy** on Mon Nov 10, 2008 4:03 am

Take out your current one, head over to OSH (or equiv) and see what thread size the bottom of your current one is. Then you could be sure.

Mark.


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