Iron churning out brownish water!

[scrummyyummy]

I have never been successful with irons! Can anyone tell me why when I'm ironing, the steam sometimes chucks out stained water (right onto my freshly washed white shirts ususally!). I'm onto my 3rd iron now! We live in a hard water area but we have a water softener so the water I put in the iron is treated water. It says on the manual to use tap water so I don't want to spend more on ionised water really. Besides, I would need gallons of it with the amount I iron every week! The iron I'm using is quite new but it's started spitting already. The temperature is hot enough for steaming so I know that's not the problem. That's one thing that gets me hot under the collar! Grrr! Can someone throw light on why this is happening please? Oh, it doesn't have a cartridge to change either. In fact, the iron is meant to be self-cleaning!

[DEN53]

scrummy - it normally means it is self-cleaning itself, albeit all over your nice clean clothes. I go through 3 irons a year. I recently bought one of the steam generator irons (Polti Vaporisor) but sent it back as it just thorough wet my clothes.

[scrummyyummy]

Thanks, Den! I guess if it's cleaning itself then I shouldn't complain but I just wish it would clean itself when I'm not in the middle of ironing! I didn't realise that's what it's doing. I've had 2 steam generators (Tefal and a cheaper make which I can't remember! Think it was Morphy Richards) but they were very expensive and I didn't feel they lasted. In fact, my first steam generator (Tefal) only lasted 18 months which for that price, I wasn't very impressed! I then went for a cheaper one (but still expensive) and that lasted slightly longer but the fabric cord bit went funny and got shorter and shorter and I was burning my wrist from the hot water tube bit as the fabric cord no longer covered it, so I went for a normal steam iron now. I have to admit, I do miss the extra steam I get from the generators and I get fed up of constantly filling up the iron. The generators could hold loads more water before it needed filling up. Still, all 3 irons used to churn out brown water! In fact, the generators chucked out more because of its powerful steam! I think I should just get an ironing lady to do all my ironing so I won't have all these problems to deal with (in my dreams!).

[lardhelmet]

I bought one in Asda for £4.99 scrummy - works just as well as the expensive ones. It's a self clean and if I haven't pushed the control right to the top, it brown spits all over Mr Helmet's shirts, so I think that's what your ironing is doing

[ttfn]

What contro lbutton lardy? I just lift mine off the fire and spit on the plate