Vacuum Valve - Espressocare

Time to breathe out

We don't like cold air in our boiler in the morning, lets see how we clear it

If you have ever worked a very old machine, you will have noticed that when you started the machine up the first thing in the morning, and then patiently awaited for it to reach operating temperature, that the first time you operated the steam valve, all you got was a gush of cold air, and then you had to wait around again for the machine to heat up. Trying to ignore the irate customers!

Having to vent the machine the first thing before service was caused by the boiler dropping in pressure over night and the remaining steam causing a vacuum. When you first then switched the machine on, this positive vacuum made the pressure switch think it was up to temperature.

Lucky for you, the manufactures solved this little problem.

They came up with a simple little device called the Anti Vacuum Valve, that vented the boiler during the night as the the machine cooled down, and then as the pressure built up in the boiler, the valve closed itself.

As with all things, they do come in various shapes and sizes, some very high end machines might use an electrical valve to vent the machine.

How it works

anti vacuum valve

As you can see from slide 2, the internals of the anti vacuum valve contain just a few components. As the steam pressure inside the boiler builds, it lifts the weight up causing the o'ring to seal against the Teflon seats inside the valve. The weight is gauged so that the valve will drop when the pressure inside the boiler is unable to hold it closed.

Common faults can be leaking steam during operation, and advisable to have repaired in order to save money on lost power.

Time to breathe out

How it works

anti vacuum valve

This is Espressocare.

MENU

RESOURCE