Black gunk in Elektra A3 pressurestat inlet

#1: Post by **Coffeecritter** » July 27th, 2014, 8:55 pm

Last week the Elektra A3's safety valve began to pop off after steaming. So we shut her down and ordered a new pressurestat. When my honey went to install it, he found that the inlet tube was plugged about a cm by hard black gunk. We replace the p-stat anyway since it was 7 years old and the points showed significant wear, but we suspect that the real issue was the blocked inlet.

Any ideas about what the black stuff might be?

Sue

#2: Post by **cannonfodder** » July 27th, 2014, 10:15 pm

Well that is not good. It should not look like that. How does the inside of the boiler look? You could try peeking in through the pressure release valve or drain the entire thing and take the heater out which is much more evasive. If you have gunk in there, it had to come from inside the boiler. Odd part is that tube is not under water so it only gets steam. If the pressurestat tube was plugged then your pressurestat was probably stuck in the closed position so it will heat until something explodes. My A3 is at least 7 years old and I have never had to do anything to it other than a once a year descale and replace the group gaskets now and then. Do you do a preventive maintenance descale?

July 27th, 2014, 10:29 pm

Indeed, we descale roughly twice/year and change the water filters when the hardness begins to creep up. The malfunction occurred roughly a week after the last descale, so perhaps something inside the boiler got knocked loose - but it looks and feels almost like hardened tar.

One idea we came up with was that at some point perhaps we insufficiently rinsed a carbon filter before installing it and that's what floated in.

All's clear now and is working well. Looking into the boiler there's nothing unusual. But you can bet we'll keep a close eye on it!

Sue