Leak from Pressure Relief Valve

[gazsib]

Hi all

Our few days old S1 Vii has a wee leak from her Pressure Relief Valve behind the cold water tank.

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Water weeps from the hexagonal nut with a large hole on each face of the valve. Leaks enough to form a fair puddle in an hour or so. It only happens when left on, there's no leak on standby.

Is it a faulty valve or does a nut just need tightening up? Would be great if I could fix it without having to send her back.

Thanks in advance

Gaz

[chas]

I am a bit confused. You say you have an S1 VII but you also state that the leak is behind the cold water tank. Does that mean you really have an S1 VII Mini?

[gazsib]

Oh yes sorry it is an S1 mini-Vii. Thanks for your reply, chas.

The pressure relief valve seems to leaking less now. I tapped the nipply bit at the bottom of the valve in case something needed to be seated better. I don't know whether that helped. Not a very well controlled experiment!!

Thanks again.

[chas]

Because of the way the valve is tilted vs position of the droplet shown, I couldn't tell if the water was coming out around the pin or through one of the holes above then dripping down. If it's the pin, then pushing it in and letting reseat once or twice made fix it. Otherwise you may have to remove the valve and soak it in vinegar in case some mineral deposits are blocking it from seating correctly.

If it is coming out of one of the holes above you can see if you can tighten that joint enough to seal it. Otherwise, you may have to remove the stainless steel section from the brass section and wrap the brass threads with some Teflon tape.

BTW: I am going to move this thread to the VII Mini Day One Issues sub-forum.

[gazsib]

Thanks Chas - on both counts.
Sorry for submitting my query in the wrong section. Very newby of me!
The leak was from the large holes rather than the bottom nipple. But strangely it seems to have stabilised - no leaks after few hours of boiler on - so I'll just keep an eye on it for now rather than tightening anything. The mini is new so I'd hope it wouldn't have any precipitates in the valve. All the best.
Gaz

[MrBlack]

Hi there. I have the same problem! Leaking from the larger holes and dripping out of the bottom of the machine. Was this resolved?

[chas]

I've never owned a Mini, but from what I recall hearing and seeing in other's photos this is the over pressure valve. On the plumbed version this actually screws into the top of the boiler and point straight up rather than the one on the Mini that hangs down. On the plumbed version I have never seen so much as a drop come out of the OPV. If I saw this happen on any of my current or former S1's I would have replaced the part.

I can't find a price on-line but I think they are about $50USD.

Before you buy a new one you may want to use the instructions below to remove the old one, soak it for a while in white vinegar, rewrap the threads with Teflon tape, and put it back on to see if that is all it needs.

You may want to look at this webpage:
R&R Mini's OPV

[eskilbrun]

I recently had a leaking pressure relese valve. I got a replacement valve from the norwegian distributor but it is calibrated at 1.8 bar instead of 1.5 bar as the original. Should I worry? I guess it should make no significant difference. I did clean the faulty valve but it still leaks a bit and whistles slightly so I will replace it.

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[chas]

A 1.8 bar replacement sounds fine. If the original valve really pops off at 1.5bar, that's pretty marginal since the normal boiler pressure is about 1.3bar.

[eskilbrun]

Thank you Chas.

That was about what I figured as well. I think the steam boiler internal pressure is controlled by the temperature probe reading so I figured that a safety margin from 1.5 bar to 1.8 bar on the pressure relief valve would be perfectly OK. But I felt the need to have a second opinion on the matter as well.

Eskil...
:-)