Your Sirena is leaking water from the basin

You find a puddle on the floor where the machine has been, or a wet line along the join between basin and body. It is almost never a cracked basin: it is a basin that is no longer being pressed against its seal.

First of all: how much water did you put in

The check that costs nothing, and the one to make before ordering any part at all. The basin has a maximum level line: that line is the right amount of water for the machine to work as it should and to hold on to the dirt it picks up. Fill it to there, no further.

More water does not suck harder — the suction does not change by a gram — and it does not clean better. All you get is surplus water that has to go somewhere.

If you have been filling it by eye, empty it, bring it to the line and try again before going any further. It often ends right here.

1. The side clips

These are the two levers that hook the basin to the body and hold it pressed against the seal. The plastic tires, the hook loses a couple of millimetres of shape, and from then on the seal no longer presses. Two millimetres is all it takes.

How to recognise them: with the machine off and clipped shut, try moving the basin with your hands. If there is play, if it "wobbles", it is the clips. The other sign is that the leak happens while you are vacuuming and not with the machine at rest: it is the suction pulling water out through the gap.

They are sold in pairs, and both should be changed even if only one has broken: the second one is the same age and will give way soon.

with the replacement video

2. The separator nut

If the nut holding the separator works loose or wears, the assembly runs off-axis and throws water upwards instead of letting it fall back. You can recognise it because the leak comes with a new noise, a vibration that was not there before. Check that it is tight; if the thread is worn or the seat has gone oval, it has to be replaced.

3. The basin

Last, because it is the most expensive and the rarest. A crack almost always comes from a fall, or from a winter spent in the garage with water inside: freezing, it expands and opens the plastic.

To see it: basin empty and dry, looked at from the inside against the light. Frost cracks are fine and start from the bottom. With the basin in your hands, fill it with water in the sink and wait a minute: if it weeps, you have found it.

If it is still leaking

Send us a photo of the basin clipped in place, seen from the side. From that it is almost always clear whether the play is in the clips or in the seal.