brown water stains with steam generator iron

Nicki

I bought a steam generator iron a few weeks ago to try to cut down on the large amount of time I spend ironing. It is great on the whole, but just occasionally in the middle of the ironing, it will leak a small amount of brown water over whatever I'm currently ironing, which leaves a stain and means the item needs to be rewashed.

Does anyone have any idea what is causing this, and how to prevent it? I haven't burned anything onto the soleplate, which looks completely clean, and as it first happened on the second occasion I used it, and the iron was bought from new, I can't imagine it could be caused by limescale already. I'm not putting anything else in the iron, just plain tap water.

Thanks

aliasojo

These irons need flushed out from time to time. Did yours come with a flexible hose thing that goes from the tap to the iron?

Some makes are worse than others for this. My Tefal has periods where it's fine for months and only needs doing now and then......then for some reason it has times where it needs flushed a lot more.

Nicki

aliasojo wrote: »

These irons need flushed out from time to time. Did yours come with a flexible hose thing that goes from the tap to the iron?

No. It has a tank which you remove to fill from the tap, then replace in the body of the iron.

Sorry to be dim, but what do you mean by flush it out? Do you mean to fill the tank with water and let the iron steam until its empty, or something different? It didn't come with any instructions about this kind of thing.

Thanks for your help.

jomo70

Hi there

It should have somewhere to empty out the water at the side of the irons base (seperate from where you fill up with water)....with mine, you just open it and tip the water out, but my old iron needed rising out, i just used to tip on the side fill with a little water, whosh it about and empty..hope that makes sense? Have you still got the instructions? they should tell you

Jomo

aliasojo

Yes as Jomo says, there should be somewhere at the side that you unscrew (usually).

When I said flushing out I just meant put clean water in, rinse the dirty water and any 'bits' out. This is done through the base, not where the water goes in when you're ironing.

What make is the iron?

larmy16

I use half and half white vinegar/water and let it steam for quite a while. Keep pressing the steam thingy that blows out of the holes (sorry don't know tech terms). I then switch it off and leave on a large plate to empty water. It's unbelievable how much gunk comes out. Sometimes I repeat the process. It probably is limescale from the tap water.

Nicki

aliasojo wrote: »

Yes as Jomo says, there should be somewhere at the side that you unscrew (usually).

When I said flushing out I just meant put clean water in, rinse the dirty water and any 'bits' out. This is done through the base, not where the water goes in when you're ironing.

What make is the iron?

Its a Morphy Richards. I've had a look and can't see anywhere obvious that would unscrew. Have also looked at the instruction manual, which is pathetic, and has nothing in it which would help.

I have though just cleaned the soleplate with white vinegar (with iron off) and as soon as I did this, brown water started to gush from some of the steam holes. So it looks very like it is in fact limescale, even though it started so quickly after the iron was bought and it is supposed to have an anti-scale cartridge, which isn't claiming to be empty.

I guess maybe I should try larmy's advice, then maybe replace the cartridge in case the first one was faulty in some way.

Rikky1066

The brown stains are caused by steam from the iron condensing in the fabric and dissolving soap residue or fabric softener residue. The solution is sucked back into the iron. In contact with the hot sole plate, the residue degrades into a brown solid. If the iron is run too cool, steam condenses on the sole plate and dissolves the brown residue. This solution is discharged through the soleplate and stains the fabric.


My actions: After every session with my steam generator iron I allow the soleplate to cool to room temperature. Turn the iron setting to minimum. Turn on the steam generator for a few minutes. Hold the iron over a sink. Send shots of stem into the iron, and watch the colour of the water emerging into the sink. Repeat shots of steam until the water runs crystal clear.


For a normal steam iron, fill the tank with water, switch on at low temperature, one dot. Hold iron over sink, press "Shot of Steam" button repeatedly until the water runs crystal clear.