Brownish water

joe jeczen

Hi Reiss,

First, I have to really thank you for all your help fixing my L1, it works beautifully with all the new components.

I'm having an issue where the water quality is somewhat strange though and I suspected it before the repairs, but never acted on it.

I never used to warm my cups with the water spout on the left side, but post fixing I started to and the water that comes out has a slight brownish tinge and includes small particles in small amounts.

I can send pictures, however, but I'm just wondering what thoughts you have as to how to remedy this?

My theory is that over time the element has heated the water enough to produce impurities that would be found in a similar fashion to that of distilling water.

Well any help to clear my water would be great!

~Joe

Reiss Gunson

basically two things

1. unscrew the diffuser off the hot water tap on the machine (the very end fitting - you will see the diffuser for sale in my webstore if you are unsure of what it looks like)

2. i expect the diffuser has silicone grease at the top of it and this have trapped grit and muck from the boiler. dissolve the silicone grease with a citrus solvent which will release the grease. this will solve the grit issue

3. refit diffuser and flush about 5 litres of water through it. this will resolve the discolouration issue

let me know

kind regards

reiss.

joe jeczen

Hi Reiss,

I know this thread has gotten a bit old, but I tried to give this a try for some time.

I went further and flushed through the group excessively, but the "weak tea" colored water will only go away temporarily.

I'm open to any other suggestions, it's a livable problem, but it would be great if I could resolve it.

Best,
Joe

Reiss Gunson

hi joe

if you have soft water and you dont pull much water through the boiler you are going to get some of the boiler being dissolved by the acidic water

pulling more water through the boiler will ensure that it never becomes discoloured, but the dissolving process will continue regardless

the solution is to harden the water so it becomes less acidic



kind regards

reiss.

joe jeczen

Thanks for the reply Reiss,

I flushed several times and it cleared up.

I never had the issue previous to servicing the machine with you a couple months ago.

However, I did recharge the softner (this never caused the water to brown before either).

I suppose the solution is to just let time harden the water coming through.

Thanks,
Joe

Reiss Gunson

hi joe

if you want to get to the bottom of it start by getting a titration kit, eg the Hach 5E from memory or equivalent, and accurately measure the water hardness

once you know how hard the water is you can increase its hardness with a range of compounds, not least of all baking soda or table salt (but obviously it isnt ideal to introduce more salt into your diet unnecessarily, but the point i am trying to make is it is not difficult to raise water hardness)

using a common household kitchen item allows you to test the idea before going out and spending money on a more sophisticated commercial solution too

once you have raised the hardness measure the water again to see how much the water hardness has risen and then observe if this new level is sufficient to stop the water dissolving a tiny amount of the boiler, which is what is occurring when you see the water discolouration

if it solves the issue then you know how much you need too add in future to eliminate the issue

if you dont measure before and after it is very difficult to know exactly where you are with any kind of problem, not just this one

kind regards

reiss.