I'm coming very late to this discussion as I am upgrading my equipment and need to know whether to get a small water softener or not. And I'm new to this forum.

After many phone calls and such, I found that our water as 80 mg/liter Calcium. I don't know exactly what that means.

I'm gettng ready to order my Izzo Alex and want to order a softener at the same time if needed.

Help please.

A start may be Jim Schulman's Insanely Long Water FAQ. But be warned, unless you have a PhD, it may make your brain hurt.

Thanks, but I already read that, my head is still spinning!

I was hoping for some easier reading here.

Hi everyone,

I am ready to descale the heat exchanger on my Anita with Cleancaf but I have a question. What is the correct concentration of the descaling solution? There are three small packages in a pack of Cleancaf and each package is 0.33 oz (9g). I would like to flush 1 liter (around 2 pints) of descaling solution through the group. How many packages should I use? Thanks very much.

puchang

Per the instructions at http://www.urnex.com/cleancafinstructions.htm it is 1 package per 4 cups of water (or roughly 1 liter).

jesawdy wrote:Per the instructions at http://www.urnex.com/cleancafinstructions.htm it is 1 package per 4 cups of water (or roughly 1 liter).

Thanks Jeff.

puchang

Great instructions. I just descaled my Vetrano, boiler and hx. Bit more of a challange it being plumbed in, I imagine, and I was sweating there more than once hoping not to do anything to mess her up. Thanks for the directions.

She's running now and is pulling shots like normal. No damage done. Things taste cleaner, actually.

A few questions about the procedure. Each time I over filled the boiler then drained the water out to, I'm assuming, below the sensor, with the sensor connected it took quite a while for the pump to activate, much longer than I figured to maintain the set water level. Draining with the water wand got water but at one point only steam and no water. When the pump finally activated the boiler pressure reading climbed slowly at first then shot up to way higher than the set 1.2 to the red zone and the pump kept going. When it hit the red zone I shut off and/or bled steam out of the steam wand to get the pressure back down. After a few funky no water but steam out of the water wand and pressure shooting up into the red zone while pump stays on things settled down and the pressure held at set, water came out of the water wand and the pump came on with a drop in water level and off, I'm assuming, when the water reached the proper level. This happened every time I forced boiler overfill and then tried to drain the boiler and get the pressure/fill level back to normal.

So what happened? Is there a potential for doing damage when the pressure reading shoots up, pump doesn't go on and only steam is coming out of the water wand? Is it an air pocket messing things up and giving false readings? Are there precautions to follow descaling a plumbed in HX and boiler?

You are pumping water into the boiler with the machines pump, which is adjusted to 9 bar. If the vacuum breaker is closed, and the wand open, it should not rise too high. However, if you have a small steam wand, the pump will pump water into the boiler faster than it can vent from the steam wand and your boiler pressure will shoot up. If it were to get dangerously high, the boiler emergency pressure release valve would open and give you a shower in descale water.

Thanks Cannonfodder,

That makes sense. So after the pump stops pumping water at 9 bars of pressure into the boiler things will stabilize. So keeping the steam wand open to vent pressure as you're filling a nearly empty boiler with a pump set at 9 bar will work to stabilize pressure and keep it from shooting off the scale? And, when the water level in the boiler reaches set and the pump turns off would be the time to close off the steam valve and things should run normally from there? I appreciate the reply. Descaling wasn't that hard but again, I don't want to damage my machine with the mechanics of doing it.

I always take the steam tip off when over filling during boiler descaling just in case. This way there's never a problem. And kill the pump during over fill as soon as liquid is flowing from the steam wand simultaneously closing the steam wand.