213 coffee, how does it get this bad before my phone rings?

[Mistah Mike]

Got a call this morning about a bad smell coming from one of our 213's. We all know what that usually means, bucket funk from stretched out service schedules. So I write it off as the routemans problem and send out a call to have him stop by. 45 minutes later the account calls and says there is water on the floor. Oh crap, time to go!

 

I get there and the bucket funk was strong, as I expected. What I didn't expect was the mess I found inside. I had dirty water on the floor of the cabinet, and hot cocco all over the place. 

 

First things first, clean. That took me a good hour to clean it up and get it into a condition that I could work on. 

 

So I start to investigate what happened. Apparently a lot went wrong with this vendor in a hurry.

 

I had a whipper gasket(the little semi clear one that sits behind the whipper blade) fail, and sling hot cocco all over the place,

 

All three of the brew valves on the hot water tank were leaking(the little O ring's were gone)

 

After I got all the seals replaced and it back up and running, it was still leaking from the top brew valve, turned out that the rubber diaphragm inside the brew valve had a tear in it. New brew valve.

 

Wasn't the worst job, but it took me quite a while since my van was parked over a 1/4 mile away in a overflow lot and I had to make a couple trips back for seals. 

 

 

I know that little problems seem to get pushed off sometimes when we are busy, but I can't understand how this thing was bleeding from a bunch of different places and it took water on the floor to get my phone to ring.

 

 

[moondog]

Got a call this morning about a bad smell coming from one of our 213's. We all know what that usually means, bucket funk from stretched out service schedules. So I write it off as the routemans problem and send out a call to have him stop by. 45 minutes later the account calls and says there is water on the floor. Oh crap, time to go!

 

I get there and the bucket funk was strong, as I expected. What I didn't expect was the mess I found inside. I had dirty water on the floor of the cabinet, and hot cocco all over the place. 

 

First things first, clean. That took me a good hour to clean it up and get it into a condition that I could work on. 

 

So I start to investigate what happened. Apparently a lot went wrong with this vendor in a hurry.

 

I had a whipper gasket(the little semi clear one that sits behind the whipper blade) fail, and sling hot cocco all over the place,

 

All three of the brew valves on the hot water tank were leaking(the little O ring's were gone)

 

After I got all the seals replaced and it back up and running, it was still leaking from the top brew valve, turned out that the rubber diaphragm inside the brew valve had a tear in it. New brew valve.

 

Wasn't the worst job, but it took me quite a while since my van was parked over a 1/4 mile away in a overflow lot and I had to make a couple trips back for seals. 

 

 

I know that little problems seem to get pushed off sometimes when we are busy, but I can't understand how this thing was bleeding from a bunch of different places and it took water on the floor to get my phone to ring.

 

You really should switch to K-kups       

[Mistah Mike]

We have both, some of our accounts just don't fit the K cup market. Old timers love their freeze dried.

[AZVendor]

This would be entirely the route driver's fault for not making you aware of any water leaks. Time for re-training. None of these issues ocurred overnight. Wet machines require diligent service. At each service the waste bucket must be cleaned with hot soapy water. I taught my drivers to then put a squirt of soap into the empty bucket to mask any odors that might come from any liquid that fills the bucket.

The torn inner whipper seal is normal with usage and is a normal wear part to replace when you see leakage. There is one of these seals on every whipper and all should be replaced when the first one leaks.

The water valve o-rings all leaking at once probably means they were all old and brittle, which is fine until the tank goes cold and the o-rings contract and leak. I would bet that the machine lost power to the heaters, possibly from a filled waste bucket that wasn't emptied for awhile, and the tank got cold causing the o-rings to leak.

As to the torn valve diaphragm - that can be caused by calcium built up in the valve body and only requires the replacement of the diaphragm, not the entire valve. When I replace brittlr o-rings like you did I also rebuild the valves with new diaphragms and clean calcium out of the valve bodies too, since brittle o-rings mean the valves have been in the tank for a long time and service is due.