# Lelit Mara steam wand passing a lot of water



## Steve G (Mar 28, 2021)

Hi, I wonder if anyone could help me. I have a Lelit Mara that I have had for 14 months and it has worked brilliantly making great coffee and steaming milk really well. Last week I noticed that I couldn't steam milk and that my jug was filling up with water, and that the steam wand was spitting and spluttering. I contacted the retailer as the machine is under warranty to be told it was an airlock and I should simply run both hot water and steam wand to solve the problem. Over the past week I have done this dozens of time and it isn't making any difference. I have also noticed that the pump is making noises/working far more frequently than before and my steam pressure gauge is far more erratic often bouncing of the scale before settling back at about 1.5 bar. The machine still pulls good shots. In taking 200ml milk from fridge temperature to 60 degrees I end up with about 350ml of liquid in my jug.

The retailer has said they will only repair it in London under warranty and I live in Leeds so it isn't ideal, but before I ship it off, am I doing something daft? I cannot find anything on line about airlocks in the steam/water system, and both are delivering water so there isn't a blockage or lack of flow.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Steve


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## El carajillo (Mar 16, 2013)

What water do you use in it ? , bottled , filtered, tap ? Is your local water hard or soft ?


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

@Steve G It sounds like the boiler might be overfilling (but I am guessing based purely on the limited information you have provideed). Leeds water is reasonably hard as are some bottled mineral waters, if using these in your machine, it's possible limescale may be affecting things. It's also possibly that there is simply a loose connection on the autofill probe.

*It's definitely not an airlock*.....the steam pressure gauge is going way too high as the pump is capable of delivering 9 or 10 bar and as the boiler fills it compresses the steam in the top of the boiler.

Depending on whether yours is a little different inside to the one I reviewed, It doesn't sound as if it's getting completely full. If it was, you would most likely be getting a small pool of water under the machine....as it flows out of the vacuum breaker when first heating. Sometimes though it can run an autofill, or expand so fast on heating, it closes the vacuum breaker. Then at warm-up, you would see a very large pressure increase indeed...of the scale in fact....as the safety valve on these is set to 2.5 bar or 2.7 bar. it's also routed back to the tank so you would never see the water coming out of it, unless you knew which tube to lift out of the tank and check.

There are a few things you should do, I'm assuming you have a smartphone with the ability to take photos and shoot video..

1. Take the top lid off and have a look. Take a photo like mine and upload it here....you would be surprised what we can see in a photo

2. With the lid off, watch the machine as it warms up, find the tube that goes back to the tank (not the pump feed tube) and lift it clear of the water. Video anything interesting that happens to the steam pressure gauge, tube and vacuum breaker....or when any odd noises happen.

3. Once the machine is up to temperature and full pressure...switch it OFF, then open the water wand into a jug and see how much water you get out. When I reviewed it, I believe I could get 1.1 litres max out of a properly functioning machine.

I would do this because of the comments from your retailer...... You have a visual record, you have a video record and you have some notes. If the fault is down to a scaled up probe...they will probably charge you for the warranty repair, you may also get charged for all the parts they changed and time they took trying to find the fault., plus postage at least 1 way, if not both ways. A scaled up probe or loose connection is easily fixed for free and usually faster than it would take you to box up the machine.

Over to you.........................and welcome to the forum.


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## Steve G (Mar 28, 2021)

Dave, thank you so much I will take a look tonight. I hadn't thought about it before you highlighted it, but I have been getting water underneath the unit which I thought had been me clumsily filling the water tank because I was going through a lot of water doing the steam and water purging as per the advice I got.


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## Steve G (Mar 28, 2021)

Dave, I opened the machine up and immediately noticed that the autofill probe was sticking out much further than in your image and in the video review that you did on Youtube. I did heat up the machine, the steam pressure gauge was 3bar, I tried the steam, which was really wet and then switched off and drained using the water tap, I only got 650ml of water. I looked at the "return" tube and did seem to be flowing pretty freely while the pump was working, as if the boiler was full and returning water to the tank. I am sorry but I have really struggled to copy an image,

Having looked on line I now realise the probe controls how much water is in the boiler and how much steam, the bigger the gap more, drier steam but at lower pressure. When I pushed the probe down, into a similar position to your photo/video and switched the machine, it was less noisy and the steam was "back to normal" with a pressure of 1.25bar and lots of really dry steam. However, when I drained the boiler I only got a little over 400ml of water. I did notice that the water was slightly milky, and wondered whether there might be some limescale but whilst Leeds water is "slightly hard" we have no problem with limescale in the kettle for instance.

Whilst this seems to have done the trick, should I be worried that I am getting far less water out of the boiler it does seem to be substantially less than the size of the boiler which is over a litre? Hugely appreciated Steve


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## Mark70 (Jan 12, 2020)

There was a thread in the middle of last year where the consensus was that 400ml was all you could draw out of the hot water outlet so yours is normal.

I live down the road on Barnsley where the water is very hard and I used bottled or BWT filtered in my Mara. Your looks like classified as slightly hard so it could be calcium? Do you flush out the boiler regularly. I used to draw out 400ml of water weekly as the TDS's will build if not


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

@Steve G You've done something incorrect, you can't have really wet steam and only drain 600ml from the boiler. You are experienced enough to know the difference Please do the tests I asked and video/photo as much as possible....so I can help you, otherwise we will meander down a path of confusion and guessing. The boiler is 1.5 or 1.8litre...I forget, they will probably be working on a 70% ish fill and the water drain tube is at the bottom of the boiler probably slightly elevated inside (like the feed pipe in a car fuel tank)...thus you should be able to get over 850ml from it. 650ml is way too little, I don't really know why you got that amount. However, it's possible the thermal probe is playing up and the pressure gauge is also reading wrong, or some other problem only allowing such a small amount of water *out of a still overfilled boiler*. Or your steam isn't wet but very weak, or, or...

Pushing the probe in may have even exposed the heating element and it might go pop...Put the probe back and rewind...lets have another go.

I just saw the above post, so it's "possible" they raised the exit tube for water inside the boiler as a modification after I reviewed the one I had? Perhaps they had a reason, wanting to prevent boiler pressure dropping very low if too much water was drawn out. They do sometimes make changes. I would see if a Mara, not a MaraX owner can confirm this as I definitely got over 850ml from mine....perhaps even Lelit can confirm for you.


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## Mark70 (Jan 12, 2020)

Here's the thread. 400ml looks normal

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/53877-mara-pl62-not-mara-x-what-volume-can-people-drain-using-the-hot-water-tap/?do=embed


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

@Mark70 I remember that thread now... perhaps Lelit decided to not let you draw too much water.


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