Hello folks,
I'm usually in the lever part of this forum and have never worked with pump machines. I'm investigating on behalf of a friend with a Butterfly machine. (This is an HX machine right?)

She's not technically minded so I'm having difficulty getting straight detailed info from her. From what I can tell, right now she's having her pressure valve blow when she leaves her machine on but she's also noticed before this started happening that her steaming power was diminishing.

Her pstat was replaced by the service agent. Her pumps are good, but she's still having trouble. I think she backflushes as often as recommended but from what I gather she had no idea she needed to descale her machine. Could this be the source of her trouble?

I think she needs her pstat turned down, i can do that for her, but i don't think she can do this right now without killing her steam performance.

The machine is at least 2-3 years old so probably in a bit of a state by now! Now if she descales, she risks getting flakes of scale into the group right? How can she avoid this? Should she not run the descaling solution through her grouphead? There's no way she's ever going to take that apart for cleaning herself if she gets loosened crud in it and it starts leaking. I don't want to recommend a course of action that's going to land her with extra maintenance expenses if I can help it. Also taking the machine apart for an acid batch etc is probably out of the question.. if that's what's required I'd have her take it to her agent. (ie: I don't want to be responsible for her machine!)

In this machine, how does she get descaling solution through her steam wand? I read something about tipping the machine 45-deg left and then right to overfill the boiler. Does this work?

Is there a quick way to drain the boiler to speed up getting the descaling solution into the boiler form the reservoir?

Is there anything else I need to know or consider? The machine is technically brewing just fine so I'm guessing all the electronics are functioning as they should. The service agent was talking about replacing the logic board at vast expense, so I'm trying to save her wasting that if its just overdue for a damned good clean.

Thanks in advance.

First thing is to check the pressure gauge and turn the pressurestat down to 1.2 bar max. Then spend a half hour sitting in front of the machine watching the gauge. If there is a sudden increase in pressure over the 1.2 bar setting then the pressurestat needs a new microswitch, because the switch is sticking.

Switch failure usually occurs because of a steam leak via the vacuum breaker, so replacing the o-ring in the VB is the next step.

Finally, remove the steam tip and clear the dried milk out of it.

Descaling requires a reasonable amount of tool use, so it depends on your friend's ability in that area.

Alan

Thanks Alan, excuse my ignorance but what's the VB? Oh.. the vacuum breaker I guess ?!

2-3 years of use without a descale could be a problem. It really depends on how hard the water is. A badly scaled machine will suffer from lethargic steaming and slow heat up and recovery. As mentioned, check the pressurestat and make sure the boiler pressure is set correctly. As to descaling, it is relatively straight forward. These threads should get you going.

Water, Scaling and Descaling with HX machines?

Mixing citric acid/sour salt for decalcifying / descaling

How do I descale my espresso machine?

Simplified HX Descale [PourOver]

Ok, Thanks for the info.
I found most of those threads last night and did some reading. She has decided however since its been a long time, she's going to get the service people to do it for her. Its all good stuff to know anyway and it will give us a few more ideas if the descale doesn't fix everything up.

Just a follow up for anyone reading this in future.
She had her machine descaled by the service people and it seems to be behaving itself for now.
Had it not fixed it, we'd have been taking a look at her vacuum breaker valve for signs of wear or scale in there.

Thanks for the advice.