I have a Rancilio Silvia that I bought a number of years ago. It's not a V3, but I can't remember if it's a V1 or V2 (If anyone has any easy way to determine this, that would be helpful).

It recently started blowing the GFI breaker. I tried plugging it into a non-GFI outlet as our GFI breakers are a bit flaky (old house) and it seemed to work ok.

But, when I drew a shot from it, it got very noisy (I think from the boiler) and the shot came out way to fast. (I use the machine daily and it's dialed in pretty well). I discarded the shot and decided to just run some water through the machine. The water came out super heated and it looked like a white slurry. There was tons of fine white particulate in the water. The machine continued making a ton of noise like the boiler was going berserk. Then suddenly I couldn't get any water to come out of the grouphead.

So my guess at this point is that I think the boiler element finally died. Based on what I've read online it seems likely. It probably overheated and kicked out a bunch of scale or something and clogged my 3-way valve.

My plan at this point is to replace the boiler with one from 1st line and take my 3-way valve apart and clean it.

The boiler runs about $120 on 1st line and there are no refunds. I wanted to see if I could get a sanity check from folks on here.

Is my diagnosis correct? Are there other things I could do or check? Or should I just buy the boiler?

Also, since there seem to be differences in boilers between V1 and V2, is there an easy way to tell which version my Silvia is?

She has served me well. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Joshua


PS added by moderator: Those following this thread may wish to read Joshua's cross-post on CoffeeGeek before replying to avoid needless repetition.

Overheated could also mean a stuck brew thermostat.
If you can retrieve some of the white stuff, put it in some descaler (or vinegar or citric acid). If it eventually dissolves (say in an hour or two) then it is scale.

But, to be safe, and particularly since it tripped the GFCI (and you were crazy enough to try it on an unprotected outlet anyway ) why not pull the boiler apart and examine it internals. Then decide if it is worth it to you to fix or upgrade. Or both.

The V1 had bolt-in heating elements and those eventually leaked when the gaskets gave out. V2 has a welded-in heating element.

And if you do find a lot of scale in the boiler, it is time to examine your maintenance schedule as well as the water you are using.

That's my concern, is that I replace the boiler and then the actual problem was a thermostat or something.

What would I be looking for if I take the boiler apart? What would indicate it's a heating element problem vs a thermostat problem?

There were a few years that I was VERY bad about maintenance... I've since tried to be very vigilant about maintenance, but the damage may have been done.

What should you be looking for


Hmmmm I have a feeling you will know immediately once you eyeball what is inside that boiler.

I would take it to someone who knows how to fix it if you are not sure how to trouble shoot this machine.


Don't run it on an unprotected line either.

Well I'm relatively handy, I've retrofitted my V2 with a V3 steam wand etc.

I'm on here for some advice. If I wanted to take it to a repair place, I wouldn't have posted for advice on how to diagnose and fix it.

I can open it up and take a look inside the boiler, but I'm trying to figure out what would I be looking for that might indicate it's a failure in the heating element as opposed to a problem with the thermostat or other component.

This is for reference use only I am not telling you to do this. What you do after is your responsibility.


There are three thermostats one has a tiny red button that you push in and viola it will power up again. That is a safety thermostat.

Keep in mind the safety overheat protection thermostat does not always kick in in time to save your heating element.

The other two are cheapo click thermostats one is rated for brew temperature and the other for steaming temp. They are probably intact as I have never had one of those blow on me even when the safety thermostat blew.

If you get it working again after pushing in the red button turn it off and prepare to descale the machine. From your description of events it sounds like your machine it way past overdue for a massive descale.

This is for reference use only I am not telling you to do this. What you do after is your responsibility.



If the above does not work then disconnect the wires from your coils and use an ohm meter to test the resistance of your coils.

If you read zero ohms then the coil is shorted

oh do scrape any and all debris and crust or whatever off the contacts if you want to have any hope of getting a halfway decent reading.

If the reading is infinite or a very high ohm reading like say in the Megaohm range your coil is open (translation blown kaputz.)

Find the wattage and voltage rating for your machine and use ohm's law to determine what the resistance of your heating coil should be.

Some silvias I believe older ones operated at 800 watts others at near 1000 watts just figure out what yours is.

What ever that case your resistance should be in 14 to 20 ohm range (more or less) and don't expect the reading to be spot on, a little slop in the tolerance range is normal manufacturing practice.

Now the bad news. Even if this checks out the coil could still be bad in some cases. I don't have an answer for that one.