Most La Pavoni home levers have the pressure relief valve but no anti-vac so at startup you need to release some steam to get up to the correct temperature and after turning it off the lever is sometimes "sucked" upwards by the under-pressure in the boiler.
La Pavoni puts more modern valves on their new models. These have two-in-one: it's a pressure relief valve that opens when a maximum pressure is reached, to avoid breakage, it releases some steam during warm up and it allows air to get sucked back into the boiler when cooling down.
A fine reason to go visit Peter van der Weerd in his www.kafko.nl workshop, and enjoy his company, chatting about things related to coffee machinery, life, family, pleasure... and coffee.
Peter van der Weerd upgraded my old La Pavoni Pro with this new valve and in the process he did a check up of the machine, replacing a rubber seal in the boiler cap and also replacing the heating element which had suffered some overheating in the past and turned out to have less than "infinite" electric resistance which might cause a shock someday.
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| Taking off the old pressure relief valve |
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| Steam wand & old pressure relief valve off |
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| Taking a look at the bolt inside the boiler |
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| Taking off the pressure gauge |
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| Preparing to take off the heating element |
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| Looking from the open bottom up to the bolt of the oldvalve |
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| Taking off the old valve |
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| getting the new valve ready |
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| Inside of the new valve, check the anti-vac |
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| close up of anti vac |
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| Holding the bolt to fasten the new valve |
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| Sliding on the new valve combination |
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| Fastening |
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| New element in, connecting the copper tube to the OPV |
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| Copper tube to OPV fastened |
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| Bending the copper tube |
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| Machine on, checking for any tiny steam leaks |
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| New rubber seal on cap |
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| Shortened the inner bolt a bit |
Checking the new combi valve:
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| The old over-heated element, looking red hot |
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| Over-heating made it soft and flexible |
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| Easy to bend by hand after overheating |
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| Ready! |
