Just wanted to update and say thanks.

I really wanted to want the Export in glorious red color. Looking all tall and cool sitting on my counter but in the end the boiler size worried me. I think the Export would have been fine 95% of the time but I had to go with the Lusso.

In 4 more days the lever journey begins.

Thanks for the help!

Please keep us posted! I'm in the same exact boat. A big Rad Shiny Export is cool. I'll do heavy personal use for 2 people for a couple days and then nothing for 5 days. I don't want stagnant water. I can't envision manually emptying the Lusso on a routine basis but the export would be a breeze.

I thought about the stale water angle and here is my plan of attack.

1) Don't fill the boiler all the way up when I know it's going to be a 2-3 drink session.
2) Open up the hot water tap and pull off water when the session is over.

Keep in mind my machine is on a UPS truck right now so this is pure imagination at this point. But it seems like a reasonable plan.

I was thinking the same thing. If you will, let me know if opening the hot water tap drains the boiler. Who'd you end up buying from?

I grabbed it from 1st line.
The price after conversions, deducting vat and adding shipping was a wash with coffeeespressoshop in Italy.

It should be here Thursday and I'll be sure to let you know how easy/hard it is to deal with the water.

clynch wrote:I was thinking the same thing. If you will, let me know if opening the hot water tap drains the boiler. Who'd you end up buying from?

Update: I don't think the water tap is a good idea to drain the boiler.

It would work but the water splashes out of that thing in a very splattery way not a smooth stream. Not I'd say just don't fill the boiler all the way up. It's fairly easy to keep the water fresh if you don't fill in to the top as long as you use it every day or two. I'm doing that and adding fresh water.

If you really wanted to empty the boiler out totally the Export might be the way to go. That being said I am totally, absolutely, 100% happy with going to the larger Lusso boiler. Yesterday I pulled several back to back shots, steamed milk a couple times, and never came close to running out of water. I could have pulled several more shots, steamed more milk, and I did not start with a full boiler.

As a newbie to this machine it's pretty exciting to be able to take a "do over" immediately. Somebody in this thread said with flushes and steaming there might be 4-5 shots in the export. That would be fine for my use but having all of this extra power is really cool.

Now that I have it I'm glad I picked the Lusso but I realize I would have also been happy with the Export....these decisions are really impossible if you ask me. In the end it's flip a coin almost.

Thanks for the update. Nice to see it come togather. I think I'll save for the export. i expect to use the machine in the evenings and weekends only.

it's always interesting to see how many people end up with the same questions (or decisions) about "things"

I've been using a mypressi twist and due to the ongoing cost of buying cartridges and wanting a bit more control have been looking at an upgrade...I really have no desire at all for a pump machine though...

at any rate in reading (and reading and reading) about lever machines it seemed to boil down to about 4 of them, the cremina, la pavoni, elektra and ponte vecchio...the cremina is out for me due to budget, the elektra is slightly higher than I want to spend...which narrowed it to the LP and PV...two different lever styles (direct vs spring)

personally, reading about the temp. stability and consistency has me leaning to the PV...then I hit the stopping point of the Lusso vs Export...I'm still undecided

we "pull" about 4 or 5 doubles a day (for 2 people) on the twist...2 in the morning, 2 in the afternoon...7 days a week...during the holidays we add 1 or 2 more people to that

it seems the export would do the job but it appears most people go with the Lusso for some reason