A standard coffee airpot is made of five basic parts: the lid, the suction pipe, the liner, the body, and the base.
When we take a closer look though, these parts become much more complex. We dissected our popular ECAL22S Eco-Air® Glass Lined Airpot to show all of its intricate components. See how it all breaks down below.
1. The Lid
The lid of the airpot holds many of the important mechanisms that pump the coffee. Deep inside the lid itself is what we call "the bellows," an intricate pump system that uses air to suck coffee from the bottle and into your empty cup. The lid gasket is part of this pump system that shows externally.
Both the lid release button and the lid removal lever are used in conjunction to remove the lid from the body of the airpot. See how this is done in our video, Airpot Help: How to remove lid.
The top plate of the lid comes in both lever (shown below) and push button styles. Flip up the lever lock to hold it in the open position when the airpot is in use.
2. The Suction Pipe
When the airpot's lever or push button is depressed, "the bellows" of the lid, sucks the coffee from the bottom of the tube of the suction pipe and out the spigot. You can find replacement spigots for all of our airpots at www.serviceideas.com. Just type in the name of your airpot in the finder.
3. The Liner
The liner of the airpot uses vacuum insulation to keep coffee hot for extended periods of time, and commonly come in two materials, glass and stainless steel. The components of a glass liner (shown below) are the glass vacuum bottle to hold the liquid, the plastic protector to catch any glass or hot coffee if the liner breaks, and the silicone gasket to make an airtight seal. Watch how we replace a liner here.
4. The Body
The body of the airpot holds the liner and suction pipe, and also has many components. Our stainless steel shells are made thick to provide extra protection to the fragile glass interior, and the ergonomic pail handle makes it easy to carry when transporting from brewer to serving station.
5. The Base
The bottom plug of the base is what holds everything together. Check out how we disassemble and assemble an airpot by watching this quick video, Airpot Help: Replacing the liner. Once it's all assembled, the outside of the base allows the whole pot to rotate in any direction.
A Service Ideas airpot can last for years if cared for properly. So long, in fact, that some of the parts will wear out before the whole airpot is totaled. We offer replacement parts including spigots, lids, gaskets, and liners of all of our airpots, so you can extend the life of your airpot and get maximum value for your dollar.
The more you know about parts, the easier it is to diagnose what replacement parts you might need to fix your airpot. Check out our troubleshooting videos here to run through some of the common problems people have with their airpots.