Breville Dual Boiler Descale

#1: Post by **PapaWhisky** » January 13th, 2020, 12:49 pm

All,

So I have had the BES920XL for about two-and-a-half years and it's been chugging along wonderfully.
But ... I've never descaled it. I use reverse osmosis water, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Yesterday the descale indicator popped up for first time ever. So I did the descale routine.

But, I'm curious what triggers that warning in the Breville.

Any ideas ?

#2: Post by **luvmy40** » January 13th, 2020, 7:00 pm

It's triggered on the shot count. The lower you set your water hardness setting, the longer between prompts. I do believe, though I may be mistaken, there is a way to reset the main board without actually running the descaling procedure which has proven fatal to a few BDBs.

January 14th, 2020, 7:54 am

No, I think the hardness setting controls the 'clean me' message.

I've probably put 1200 - 1500 shots through this thing and it's the first 'descale' message I've seen, so it's not a shot counter.

And also the thing has started tripping my GFI outlets. Related?

January 14th, 2020, 11:00 am

It happened to my BDB 920 when one of the o-ring leak on the steam boiler. The leaked steam vapor rise and messed with the electrical board mounted beneath the top cover (right ontop of the leakage). Get it fix and the tripping goes away.

Hope this help.

#5: Post by **pcrussell50** » January 14th, 2020, 11:32 am

PapaWhisky wrote:No, I think the hardness setting controls the 'clean me' message.

I've probably put 1200 - 1500 shots through this thing and it's the first 'descale' message I've seen, so it's not a shot counter.

And also the thing has started tripping my GFI outlets. Related?

GFCI tripping = time to replace the o-rings on top of the steam boiler.

Breville Dual Boiler Mods and Maintenance
Bookmark this link ^^^

Easy job and once the wet control board dries out, no more GFCI tripping. The tubes with the o-rings are right there under the top cover. Open it up and prop it up some way that it doesn't strain the wires (hang from a coat hanger, lean up against a side cabinet, whatever). Size #007 o-rings. Don't drop the clips or small washers into the machine, and use needle nosed pliers to pull the clips. Also, with the top cover removed and the control board under the lid dried out, you can use the machine again without tripping the GFCi and the cover off while you order o-rings form EbayZon or get them from the hardware store or whatever. Plus you will be able to wiggle the white tubes and see which ones are hissing. Don't burn yourself.

Re RO water... Overly pure water can cause sensors to misread and attack the metals. Misreading sensors can melt the thermal fuse on the seam boiler leading to a cheap but difficult DIY repair, or sending off to Breville. On the flip side, if you are in a very hard water area, it's remotely possible that just enough hardness gets through that you can have some very slight scale potential. If you are not plumberd in, (I am), it's for sure best to mix 50-100mg per liter into distilled water, potassium bicarbonate OR sodium bicarbonate. Then for sure no scale and the metals will be safe.

I never descale mine because I use scale free water. I think you can make the nuisance go away after three (or is it five?) restarts from a cold shutdown. The message comes up from either a certain number of tics on the flow meter, or a certain number of shots, which are counted as pump runs of seven seconds or longer.

HTH

-Peter

#6: Post by **bhennessy** » January 16th, 2020, 7:36 pm

PapaWhisky wrote: I've probably put 1200 - 1500 shots through this thing and it's the first 'descale' message I've seen

Turn the machine off, hold down the one and two shot buttons simultaneously and wait five seconds. Then turn the power on. The first items on the menu will be error codes and if you press menu you will see a shot count which you will have to multiply by 10 to get an indication. So if you have 1500 shots on your machine, the shot Counter will read 150.