Maxi 210 cooler leaking - Advice please

Hi all,

I purchased a maxi 210 cooler (listed as new but its reconditioned by the look of it inside) last year in order to chill down my fermenter should I ever brew a lager. Well I brewed one on Saturday and its all plumbed in and doing the job.

However, the damn thing is leaking. When I look underneath water is dripping (a drip every few seconds) from the underside, under the water reservoir area. I have put the cooler into a garden tray and using it like a sump. However I don't like the amount of water its losing, and I need to top up with 3-5L of water every 12 hours or so. I filled by removing the overflow bung and filling until water ran out, so I don't think its overfilled.

The system doesn't run for long as its just tickling the fermenter to maintain 12.5C so I don't think its a ice blockage or such like. It runs for say 2 minutes and then knocks off. My controller has the fridge compressor delay protection set at 5 minutes to prevent yo-yo starting the chiller up.

Could the tank be cracked? Any joints I should be checked as without taking it all apart, things are quite hard to reach in there. Should these things run so wet?

TIA

Had this myself, turned out I had moved it after filling and water had slopped over the open tank, the water reservoir is just a big open tank not a container. Takes ages for the excess to drain off. Also I left the bung out on the overflow as when theice forms it obviously expands and more water comes out.

If you filled it and moved it the slopping around is more than likely your problem. Mine is sat redundent on a shelf ATM.

Not moved it really (moved to the side to mop up leaked water, but thats all).

I am losing a lot of water from the tank. not sure if the unit is bust or I need to run the unit continuously in order to get an ice bath formed.

Maybe it is leaking then, I took two back before we worked out I was filling it then sliding it back on a shelf, the third one leaked for a bit until it had been running a while with the bung out. They are designed to be running 24/7, I have seen others using it for cooling fermenters and they have run an aquarium pump in a container of water through one of the beer lines to the FV and back to the container rather than stop starting the compressor and using the beer tap cooler. You could even run it from line 1 back to line 2 then teh FV to get the max chill in summer.

Mine leaked right rear corner or along the right hand side, the insultaion allowed a it only to drip out which lasted for quite a while and I had condensation build up on the outer case where it was damp inside.

Depends on the make n model but some older types have very thin shell waterbaths and a leak is quite likely.

opening up and having a look see is about the only option available, and as long as any cracks are not obscured by the cooling or product coils a fix should be simple enough using some epoxy or plastic weld cement.

an unpredictable leak isnt something you want i dont think, as a sudden jolt or shock could have a critical effect resulting a a full dump of the liquid contents which could be a major pita