Descaling La Pavoni Pub V Boiler with Rocks
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dsevier
- Posts: 33
- Joined: 9 years ago
I purchased a Pub V built in 1990 with a fair amount of scale in the boiler. It also had a black coating which may have been milk sucked back into the boiler (mine does not have a vacuum breaker...). I will describe my results with various techniques, not all of which I would recommend...
Much has been written on cleaning boilers so this is just more fodder on the subject. I hate to admit this, but for the purposes of full disclosure, I initially used LimeAway gel that removed a lot of scale but left a faint odor. And yes, I would not use that anywhere I could not rinse, re-rinse 10 times. It left a faint but detectable smell in the boiler. Also, there was a small amount of residual film in the in the boiler that was sort of a clear tannish color. I then went to citric acid in hopes that it would remove the remaining film and faint smell of the LimeAway but it didn't. But, to be clear, I would not use LimeAway again for a variety of good reasons. I only used citric acid in the HX pipe so was happy about that since it is much more difficult to flush.
A technician at a local espresso machine repair place some descalers 'get into the metal and you can't get it out'. I think it was the small areas of film that held the smell of the LimeAway and I thought about using a mechanical action to remove it. A metal brush worked great for the areas I could access but some parts were beyond reach. Some people talk about bead blasting a boiler. I don't have such equipment but that might have trouble reaching areas beyond what th nozzle can point to. And that seems like way too much mechanical action for me. Now I will get to the interesting part...
I decided to try to remove the small amount of scale that remained in my boiler with small sharp rocks that I got from a landscaping rock place. I know this sounds unusual but but it seems to have worked. I had some crushed rocks with sharp edges that were about 1/4" to 3/8" in size. I added a couple of cups of that to the boiler through the heater element hole and a bit of water and then sloshed it back and forth and up and down as robustly as my upper body strength would allow. It reminded me of a rock polisher. Anyway, after spending probably a total of 10 minutes sloshing spread (across a couple days), I was left with a boiler interior with a surface covered by fine scratches and no film and no smell. The photo shows the interior as silverish but it is copper.
Much has been written on cleaning boilers so this is just more fodder on the subject. I hate to admit this, but for the purposes of full disclosure, I initially used LimeAway gel that removed a lot of scale but left a faint odor. And yes, I would not use that anywhere I could not rinse, re-rinse 10 times. It left a faint but detectable smell in the boiler. Also, there was a small amount of residual film in the in the boiler that was sort of a clear tannish color. I then went to citric acid in hopes that it would remove the remaining film and faint smell of the LimeAway but it didn't. But, to be clear, I would not use LimeAway again for a variety of good reasons. I only used citric acid in the HX pipe so was happy about that since it is much more difficult to flush.
A technician at a local espresso machine repair place some descalers 'get into the metal and you can't get it out'. I think it was the small areas of film that held the smell of the LimeAway and I thought about using a mechanical action to remove it. A metal brush worked great for the areas I could access but some parts were beyond reach. Some people talk about bead blasting a boiler. I don't have such equipment but that might have trouble reaching areas beyond what th nozzle can point to. And that seems like way too much mechanical action for me. Now I will get to the interesting part...
I decided to try to remove the small amount of scale that remained in my boiler with small sharp rocks that I got from a landscaping rock place. I know this sounds unusual but but it seems to have worked. I had some crushed rocks with sharp edges that were about 1/4" to 3/8" in size. I added a couple of cups of that to the boiler through the heater element hole and a bit of water and then sloshed it back and forth and up and down as robustly as my upper body strength would allow. It reminded me of a rock polisher. Anyway, after spending probably a total of 10 minutes sloshing spread (across a couple days), I was left with a boiler interior with a surface covered by fine scratches and no film and no smell. The photo shows the interior as silverish but it is copper.
