Are commercial machines in need of more periodic maintenance than say a high end prosumer (Duetto). I've read the descale article and that looks pretty much standard. Do they need servicing on a more regular basis?


...split from Elektra A3 owner experience by moderator...

They shouldn't need much maintenance at all - probably even less than prosumer machines. Get your water right and scale won't be much of an issue. Change group head gasket when it gets hard or leaks once a year or so. Some commercial machines are designed quite a bit more intellegently when it comes to maintenence - so it can be quicker to do the same job on a cimbali than a random prosumer, for example.

I must admit, that I've been less obsessed with cleaning, polishing, water quality measuring than when I first re-built my Elektra T1. I think commercial machines are built for coffee shops that may be less inclined to keep them as spotless as we the consumer may wish.

About the only thing I really try to remember to do is to replace the group head gasket yearly (or so). The prying, scraping, tugging, swearing, polishing on getting the original out during the rebuild has left an impression.

Mark

I've been using my Astoria, at home, since 1997. I've had to replace the group head gasket a few times, rebuilt the steam wand swivel ($15 parts and a half hour work) and had a bit of crud that had to be cleaned out from the group solenoid; that's it in 14 years. I have great water here so scale has not been a problem.
KDM

You may have to replace the gaskets more often and do a descale one more time a year than most prosumer machines but that is because a commercial machine runs 24/7 verses running a prosumer machine a few hours a day.