I recently bought a coffee shop in Ohio. I have no real coffee shop experience but plenty of technical ability. The filter system in place was last maintained in Sept. of '05!! It gets better. The cartridges are obsolete and I can find no one carrying an after market replacement. I am going to change the entire system and after reading the forums here I am just a bit more confused than I was. I am currently using a Rancilio S27 single but I just had the S20 Tecna rebuilt. It evidently went down 3 years ago and the guy put it on the floor to collect dust.

Anyone want to recommend a filter system for me. We are a small shop. 100 to 150 customers a day.

One of the most respected members here, Jim Schulman, wrote something pertaining to "insanely long water FAQ" - start with that.
Then see if you have some measurements of water from the mains where you are.
pH, TDS, hardness and the kind of hardness (calcium vs magnesium) - I probably forget to mention the most important property.
Depending on the outcome decide on a filter, if necessary.
Simple water filters can be put inline between mains and machine that keep out larger particles or contain (active) carbon to filter residual chemicals out.
I am not sure about vendors in the US, but google "water filter" and e.g. "reversed osmosis" (which you don't want after reading Jim's insanely long ...) and you will hit on vendors of these filter components.

Regards
Peter

Here's what you are shooting for: http://www.scaa.org/PDF/ST%20-%20WATER% ... V2009A.pdf. Install a system that will produce it.

Thank you Marshall. I printed that page out and gave copies to my landlord who happens to be the guy that tests the water purity for our city. I don't know if tht will be good or bad. I do know that once I have everything in place, the taste of coffee is going to improve around here.

I am even finding out that the group head filters were never changed!

Recently installed a Mavea Purity Quell ST System http://www.mavea.com/mavea/product_overview.html?L=0 at our shop. FYI I am in no way affiliated with this company or it's affiliates, just a happy customer!
Great for low or high volume brewing, as well as excellent water conditioning treatment. Can be used for coffee brewers and espresso machines, the start up fee was higher than some other systems but the company we bought it from here in Mpls gave us a pretty good discount for trading in our old Everpure setup. Plus the cost of filtering per cup, is significantly less compared to what we were paying. A lower cost per cup will save a lot of $$ on filters in the long run. The kicker is that the Mavea system allows adjustment depending on % water of hardness in your area, as well as a digital display that indicates when the filter should be changed. One of the problems we ran into with the Everpure 7SO Softener was that it had less capacity and you really had no indication when it needed to be changed. We have the Quell ST 600 single unit hooked up to both our coffee & espresso machine, and have been very happy with the results we are getting. Good luck with your shop. Happy brewing!!

When I did my shop, I got a cirqua lp150, which has since been superseded. Since we had hard water, it was fed by a Kinetico softener using potassium chloride (so it didn't taste salty). I liked how it had reverse-osmosis, followed by carbon block filtering for the lines that fed the boilers, and just the carbon filtering for lines feeding the water/ice station. The dial let me control mixing of filtered with R-O+filtered water in the boiler lines to get the tastiest extraction.

It was outrageously expensive for a small shop, but I personally think it was worth it, taste-wise.

The way Eric set it up will certainly work, but as he said, it is pricey. RO systems on this level cost some serious coin because of the larger membrane required as well as a larger reservoir and sometimes even a pump to recreate the water pressure. If your water is very hard, don't ever install one of these mid-range RO systems without passing the water through a softener first. Hard water cuts membrane life in half, and the RO membrane costs between $400 and $700.

Depending on your water hardness and Total Dissolved Solids level, you can get away with a much more efficient setup compared to the small cartridges on Everpure and similar systems. What we use in our shop is a digital water softener (almost any brand does the same thing as long as it monitors flow and you can program water hardness), followed twin Big Blue 20" filters (1 .5 micron carbon block/briquette filter followed by a 1 micron sediment filter to catch carbon fines). You can use the flow meter on the softener to monitor filter life.

We use that setup for our espresso machine, coffee makers, italian soda fountain, ice maker, drinking water, and for the 3 bay sink because it makes it easier to wash everything with softened water. The ice maker is water cooled, so we had to split the water line to avoid wasting good water.

You can lease the softener or buy for close to $1400 depending on the company. The Big Blue Setup is easy to install on your own, and the parts and first filters cost under $300. You may need a pressure reducer before the S27. I can't remember their requirements for line pressure.