Our steam iron is spitting out particles of *something* when steam function is turned on and particularly when the shot-of-steam button is pushed.
The particles are dark brown - they almost look like small freeze-dried coffee granules - but are pretty hard and gritty to the touch.
We live in west central Scotland - a "soft" water area where we use water for the iron straight from the tap
I don't recall seeing this before. Anyone any ideas?
TIA
Ours does this from time to time even though it is fed with refrigerator condensate (we are in a hard water area. I guess it is accumulated crap even in that water.
Turning up to full in no steam mode and then enabling the steam, seems to clear the worst out for a week or so.
Rust particles from the steam chamber? Soft water is fairly "aggresive" (it'll attack copper HW cylinders that don't have a protective layer of scale...) and tap water is normally fairly well oxygenated as well.
Rust? Brian
Rust +1 You do empty the Iron after every use don't you ;-) PS Today it is raining here (Skelmorlie. Where I hear you say. Try Google maps). Providing that soft water!
Give it flush a through with maximum steam on on hottest setting (maybe it even has a descale setting that's hotter than normal) with or without a dose of de-scaler, it should spit out all the gunk and be OK for another few months.
Burnt limescale. A some time the iron has run out of water and the limescale has got very hot. Once hot it departs company from the heating element My iron used to do this with tap water, but not since the water produced from a de-humidifier has been used.
You can see the same when allowing a gas hob kettle to run dry.
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