Help! My iron is spitting at me!

[~mama jewel~]

I have only owned my new iron for a couple of months. It's a fancy Rowenta one, too. There haven't been any problems until recently. It's starting to spit at me and unload lots of water. It's not even full, only about 1/4 full of spring water (as per the instructions, I can use either tap or spring water, so I wanted to baby it & give it spring water). I have it on cotton setting. After it's been idle for 30 minutes approx, when I tip it to get it out of sleep mode to use, a whole bunch of water spits & pours out onto my ironing board. Any guesses of what I'm doing wrong? How to keep it from doing this?

[sewchris2642]

I found this on line http://www.nasa1.org/iron%20rowenta.htm

The iron is spitting and leaking
First, check the water you use. DO NOT USE DISTILLED WATER. We recommend using tap water (up to 12 grains of hardness per gallon) or bottled spring water. If you change water, it may take several uses before your iron adjusts to the new mixture and the issue is corrected.

Make sure your iron is hot enough. Check the thermostat, if the iron is set to one or two dots, be sure the variable steam lever is in the off position (no steam).

Do not overuse the burst of steam. Allow several seconds in between each burst.

Many Rowenta irons include the auto-off feature which engages if the iron is left on its heel for 8 minutes or on its soleplate for 30 seconds or its side for 30 seconds. When the iron is reactivated, it takes about 90 seconds for the iron to reheat and be ready to produce steam.

Hope this helps.

[orangefoot]

Originally Posted by sewchris2642

Many Rowenta irons include the auto-off feature which engages if the iron is left on its heel for 8 minutes or on its soleplate for 30 seconds or its side for 30 seconds. When the iron is reactivated, it takes about 90 seconds for the iron to reheat and be ready to produce steam.

This is what mine does. In between jobs I leave it plugged in and switched on but turn the dial to off. If I haven't let it heat up again enough it will dump a load of water out and spit like mad.

The water dump happens because the water hasn't been turned to vapour yet so falls out the same way it would if you leave the iron full of water and move it face down when you put it away....

[sewchris2642]

I use a Shark iron at work but I have had the same problem as the OP. And it's because after being reactivated, I don't stand it up right away to finish heating up. When it's left on the sole plate to heat up, it spits. And I always test the iron on the end of the ironing board before ironing the gown.