Greetings all, I have been a long time lurker, the forum being an invaluable resource. So I must first extend my thanks.

I recently upgraded from a Gaggia Classic to an Izzo Vivi MkII that I picked up on eBay for a decent price. I'd managed to snap off one of the thermo-switches on the Gaggia's boiler during a full rebuild, and my father's attempts to remove said snapped thermo-switch were less than profitable.

I set up the Vivi all fine, it needed a quick descale, but I pulled a shot that was OK. Throughout all of this the boiler pressure gauge was reading 0.5-0.65 bar. This was far lower than what I was expecting as a minimum (1.0-1.2) and the steaming abilities were rather poor.

After a bit of Google-ing and self education in the workings of HXs I turned up the pressure stat slightly, and then some more. The pressure gauge still fails to read above 0.7 and seems to idle around 0.5. I increased the pressure stat some more and the boiler seems to have a constant release of pressure from what I believe to be the safety release valve (pictured below).



Is my pressure gauge completely off, or is the safety release valve engaging prematurely? Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Colin

If you are indeed leaking steam from the safety valve, then that could be it. The valve you have is adjustable, and it's possible that the adjustment could be off.

If you do adjust the safety valve, remember that it serves a very important purpose - don't crank it more than you have to. You also don't want to adjust while the machine is hot under steam pressure.

I'd also verify the pressure gauge with an external gauge connected to the steaming wand, just to be sure.

What I did on my machine was to pressurize the (cold) boiler with compressed air, so I could easily adjust the safety valve by hand, to around 1.8 bar.


On the other hand, it could be the pressure gauge (though from your description of wimpy steam, it likely isn't).

OR, it could be something entirely different failing - in my case, I had a failure in the pressurestat, causing the boiler to hover below the setpoint without reaching it. See:
Bad pressurestat. No biscotti.

Thanks for the info.

I switched it on the next morning and left it for about an hour to heat up. Success, the pressure gauge is now reading about 1.2, and there's no shortage of steam power. I think the descaling solution just needed a tad longer to do it's work, the machine had been left unused for a year.

The safety valve does still seem to let out a fair bit of steam and water whilst the boiler is heating up, but after half an hour or this ceases. It's odd that this seems to only happen when the pressure gauge is reading about 0.5. I'm sure it isn't the anti-vacuum seal as I've opened it up whilst heating up and it's definitely the safety valve.

I pulled a very nice shot today though so it's all working fine.

Colin