Hello,

I am hooking up a new to me La Spaziale New EK 2 group machine. I am going to be setting it up in a place with the worst water on the planet. It is hard, tastes awful and beyond bathing in it, I would not drink it unless it was an emergency. We drink bottled water usually and I would like to figure out if I can use 5 gallon bottles of water to run this machine. I have seen a small Flojet BW1000A pump hooked up to some Keurig brewers around here and was wondering if I could use the same thing (or something bigger if need be) to get water into my espresso machine. I did inherit a small water softener with the unit as well and am not sure if I would need this with the bottled water.

Any help for a newbie would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Brent Parkin
Fleming, SK

Unless the draw exceeds capacity, which is unlikely except in a busy cafe, a Shurflo pump and accumlator should work fine (also known as a water heater expansion tank).

Well that is good information.

Does anyone have an idea what model of pump and accumulator I should be looking at purchasing from Shurflo? Also, since I am using bottled water do I still need to install the under counter water softener with it?

Thanks,

Brent

As far as the Shurflo accumulators, there is this, but frankly I'd just get a bigger 1-2 gallon expansion tank, which will give you more flow in between pump activation. Something like this, but you can find such things elsewhere (including a local hardware store). If you have the Flojet pump (BW1000A is a good choice AFAIK) there is no need at all for a Shurflo pump.

You don't need a softener in such a system if you feed soft water into the system. It depends wholly on what you are using though. Make sure you test the water's hardness.