Breville Dual Boiler, five+ years on - Page 63

#621: Post by **DaveB** » March 30th, 2020, 5:07 pm

pcrussell50 wrote:Video of o-ring replacement

Wow, good stuff! Curious why some tubes have the new nuts and some still use the old clips.

#622: Post by **HotLava** » March 31st, 2020, 6:01 pm

My 6 week old dual boiler is now leaking from the water spout. Oh nooo!. I love this machine but not a good sign. Likely the o ring in the spout. It stops after dispensing some hot water. The heat likely makes the o ring swell so it stops and will start after warm up.

The customer service was fantastic and they want to send me a new machine. However it seems like a waste to send it back for such a small problem.

#623: Post by **Moka 1 Cup** » March 31st, 2020, 9:01 pm

By coincidence I was going to post an update about "my" leak.

Two weeks ago I sent my BES920XL to Breville because of a leak from the steam wand and one leak from the group head. The machine was a brand new one that I had received under warranty in July '19 (original purchase was in March '19).
The machine came back last week, on Tuesday. Unfortunately while it looked like the internal leak had been fixed, the steam wand was still leaking, actually a little more than before. I updated the status of my ticket online. The following day Breville called me, asked me a couple of questions, I sent a couple of picture for their records while we were on the phone, they issued an order for a brand new machine and sent me a shipping label for the old one, I paid a deposit that will be reimbursed when they receive the old machine back. The new machine arrived today. I put the old machine in the same box and tomorrow I am going to ship it to Breville. Started up the new machine and pulled a couple of espressos and a cappuccino.
Done.

So the downside was that I had to use my Moka's for eight days (but I actually like it) and that my son could not make cappuccino (I may also add all the boxing and unboxing). On the upside now I have few more accessories.

I still have one year of warranty to go. After that I think I will have to learn from Peter how to properly do some periodical maintenance.

March 31st, 2020, 10:38 pm

HotLava wrote:My 6 week old dual boiler is now leaking from the water spout. Oh nooo!. I love this machine but not a good sign. Likely the o ring in the spout. It stops after dispensing some hot water. The heat likely makes the o ring swell so it stops and will start after warm up.image

The customer service was fantastic and they want to send me a new machine. However it seems like a waste to send it back for such a small problem.

I've not had the leak from the water spout, but it is a needle valve, (that you would use for flow control if you did the "Slayer Mod". There are only two ways a needle valve can leak:

1) if it isn't closing all the way
or
2)if the needle and seat are worn and not mating when closed

Item (1) can be caused by scale, (unlikely if you are using Pavlis water) or "drift". If it's drift, all you need to do is pull the inner knob and put it on, one spline tighter... it is a splined shaft. If it is item (2), you need to remove the needle valve, then disassemble it. Put some abrasive paste (car valve grinding compound, cheap at any auto parts chain store), put some on the needle and spin it around between thumb and forefinger in the seat, to re establish a good clean fresh contact. And of course clean it all off nicely before putting it back together.

Disclaimer: I use an entirely different needle valve than the Breville one, for my flow control ministrations. But you can use the Breville one just as well.

-Peter

#625: Post by **HotLava** » April 1st, 2020, 7:12 am

My machine is too new to be a scale issue. Interestingly enough. I spoke with the Breville tech and we were discussing other potential issues. I mentioned the Solenoid valve tend to be an issue around 3 years or so. He told me the reason for this is scale. He said you should never wait for the descale message to come on. He said frequent descaling 3-4 times a year is recommended. I didnt see that in the manual

#626: Post by **BaristaBob** » April 1st, 2020, 10:05 am

pcrussell50 wrote:Video of o-ring replacement

Hokkay, it's been a long time coming for these videos, but I had to wait until I had a leaky o-ring in order to do it and it finally happened. First of all, my current machine is a mid-2018 build, which has two of the three PTFE water tubes on top of the steam boiler held in place by the new tube nut scheme. The third, which runs to the steam valve, still uses an o-ring and that finally reached the stage where it would begin to hiss a little steam if you wiggled it. It was insidious because if you didn't wiggle it, it would not hiss. So one might have been able to go months or a couple of years more before it began to hiss all the time. In any event, the job is sooo easy, there was no excuse not to do it, and what better time to do a video of it than now, eh?

Wiggling the tube to show the hisser:
video

The repair itself:
video

Testing, warmed up with the new o-ring
video

So, I decided instead of silicone to try EPDM, since someone donated me his stash of them some time ago. The new latest hotness in o-rings is AFLAS, which I don't have any of, so I used this instead. I'll get around to getting some AFLAS, but honestly, these o-ring jobs are few and far between enough that I'm in no hurry, and the job is easy enough, as you can now see, that even if you use an o-ring of a sub optimal material, it's not the end of the world if you have to do it again. And if you keep your BDB long enough, you will have to do it again. No o-ring can last forever.

Anyway, HTH.

I have linked back to this post in the "mods and maintenance" thread that every BDB owner should have bookmarked. Breville Dual Boiler Mods and Maintenance

-Peter

Bravo...Peter...well done!!

Maybe a harder thing for most BDB newbies would be taking the top off. A good video follow up might be how to remove the six screws and support the top to replace the o-rings.

Keep them coming my friend!!

#627: Post by **GregoryJ** » April 1st, 2020, 12:37 pm

BaristaBob wrote:Bravo...Peter...we'll done!!

Maybe a harder thing for most BDB newbies would be taking the top off. A good video follow up might be how to remove the six screws and support the top to replace the o-rings.

Keep them coming my friend!!

Hi Bob, the first 4 mins of this video does a pretty good job of showing how to get the cover off.

#628: Post by **GregoryJ** » April 1st, 2020, 1:13 pm

I have a very slow drip at the steam tip (maybe 2-3 drips per hour) and I contacted Breville to see what they would say. They told me a descale usually fixes the problem, and the machine needs to be descaled every 3 months.

I told them I use remineralized water designed for espresso machines (Pavlis) but they still told me to descale it. Maybe I will flip the seals on the ball valve, I really wanted to avoid descaling the machine.

#629: Post by **HotLava** » April 1st, 2020, 1:36 pm

I have been watching these videos. Very easy to work on provided you can find parts that are not back ordered. The water spout is comprised of multiple parts. Not sure if its an o ring or even a needle valve. It may be easier to replace the entire steam arm/water nozel aparatus so its one and done. I dont plan on fixing a thing while its under waranty. $1400 may be cheap for a dual boiler but thats a lot of money for a coffee machine. I rather spend my time upgrading the shower screen, and possibly doing the pressure profile mod.

#630: Post by **DaveB** » April 1st, 2020, 3:01 pm

GregoryJ wrote:I have a very slow drip at the steam tip (maybe 2-3 drips per hour) and I contacted Breville to see what they would say. They told me a descale usually fixes the problem, and the machine needs to be descaled every 3 months. I told them I use remineralized water designed for espresso machines (Pavlis) but they still told me to descale it. Maybe I will flip the seals on the ball valve, I really wanted to avoid descaling the machine.

The last thing you want to do is descale that machine. There have been cases where the machine would get stuck in the process and was rendered unusable. And there's absolutely no reason to introduce expensive chemicals into the machine, assuming you've used nothing but RPavlis water in it. In any event descaling would most certainly not fix your leaky steam valve! If you're still under warranty, it would be worthwhile to send it in (at Breville's expense both ways; they even send you a box and label).

There is no reason to buy a new steam valve, as it has been well documented on this forum that by simply disassembling and flipping the teflon seals it will function good as new with no leaks. In fact, the BDB's resident "Modfather" aka Peter R was sent an old one a good while back which he performed this simple operation on - and as far as I know he's still using it today. The new valves were unavailable forever and still might be. But even if you could get one, why spend $45 USD or more when you don't need to?