Kinda on this subject: has anyone ever had trouble when back flushing with plastic drains (not the flex from the tray but the standpipe and p-trap) getting soft from the heat? I had my plumber use copper for these and it does get pretty hot with any extensive flushing.
KDM

Peppersass wrote:If you're concerned about the drain, just skip it for now and plumb in the water intake. That's easier to do and pays the biggest dividends. You can always plumb-in the drain later if it becomes too burdensome to manually empty the drain box.

+1. My previous machine (Vetrano) was fully plumbed. My current machine (Spaz S1) has a water line in, but the drip tray is not plumbed out. Under normal use, the Spaz drip tray only needs to be emptied once per day. This minimal effort is easily offset by the additional hassle of cleaning a plumbed drip tray and slimy drain tube. I had originally intended to plumb the drip tray, but now I'm glad I did not.

Plumbing in, however, is really nice. My kitchen island was already plumbed for a sink, so all I had to do was drill a small hole in the countertop. If you hook up to a water line (rather than a bottle), you will probably want to install a shutoff valve, pressure regulator, water softener, and carbon filter. 3/8" lines are better, but you can sometimes get by with 1/4" tubing.

Here are the articles I wrote when I plumbed my machine:
• Plumbing in an Espresso Machine - Part 1 - Many upper-end espresso machines are designed to be connected to a water system ("Plumbed In"). Part 1 of this multi-part article deals with planning a system to safely plumb in an espresso machine.
• Plumbing in an Espresso Machine - Part 2 - This portion covers the installation and plumbing of the rest of the soft water system begun in Part 1

The VBM drip tray drains through an O-ring sealed push fitting that allows removal of the tray. it drains out through a wire-reinforced hose. In my case, the hose goes through the back of the cabinet into a three gallon plastic water bottle.

....has anyone ever had trouble when back flushing with plastic drains (not the flex from the tray but the standpipe and p-trap) getting soft from the heat?

Not an issue. I can't imagine backflushing enough water from an espresso machine to be a problem. After all, traps are meant to drain entire tubs and sinks full of the hottest water you can produce with a water heater. Worse, I pity my sink trap when I feed it, within a few seconds, 6 quarts of boiling water on pasta night, but it handles it year after year. I guess you could use Schedule 40, but that's the brick marble sh*thouse approach.

iginfect wrote:I have a plumbed in Vetrano but no "plumb out" from the drain tray. I'm not a good enough plumber to drain into the house system nor the space to have a bucket under the sink. The drip tray gets alot of coffee solids and I clean it out about every other day, the whole mess being dumped into the plethora of house plants. If the drip tray is connected to a drain, you can't easily remove it to clean it but I suppose it could be cleaned without removal. The aesthetics of a dirty never cleaned drip tray would be totally undesirable for me, and probably a health hazard.

I've never found this to be any issue at all. You can remove the driptray on my machine without disturbing the plumbing and pipework,and it's just a quick unscrewing of a hollowed out bolt, but I rarely if ever do so. If the tray gets a lot of coffee grounds in it, a jug of hot water poured in, or just let the hot water tap run for a while, will flush it away. Lift off the top grille and a quick swish round with a nylon brush, and it's shiny S/Steel again. Grounds have never built up in the pipework, and bear in mind when you do a detergent backflush, all the output from that is flushed through the pipework as well. What I wouldn't be so keen on is plumbing out into a bottle/cannister rather than direct into the drainage, but a lot of folk have done it without seeming to have problems.

duke-one wrote:Kinda on this subject: has anyone ever had trouble when back flushing with plastic drains (not the flex from the tray but the standpipe and p-trap) getting soft from the heat? I had my plumber use copper for these and it does get pretty hot with any extensive flushing.
KDM

No, never had any problem. The wire-reinforced flexible hose on mine goes into standard 32mm plastic waste pipe, and after about 3 metres, ultimately into the same trap used by the dishwasher. Don't know if the standard "off the shelf" plastic pipe here is the same as yours, but it also handles 95c washing machine output without any problem. I'm sure there are spec. ratings for this sort of product if you are in any doubt and obviously it has to be supported at the intervals specified by the manufacturer using the right amount of gradient.

da gino wrote:If I had one it would be very visible and probably on a cart....

The best (ok, only) idea I ever had in kitchen design was to take my machine off the counter and put it on a semi-freestanding work surface with no cabinets overhead. Leaving a inch or two between surface and wall makes plumbing simple and non-destructive. I adapted a sturdy office-intended typing table/desk: I extended the legs, fixed the rear frame to the wall studs with lag bolts and spacers to maintain a 2" gap, and buttressed the tabletop from below with a pair of 2"x4" boards on edge, so it should easily hold a couple hundred pounds without sagging, until the day my grandkids are pulling shots at my wake.

Does the plumbing from the drip tray have to go straight down or could it wind to the back - ie would I have to drill a hole in the top of the cart? The same question goes for the line in. (I'll probably build a cart and in case I used it for something else later I'd rather not have a hole in it, but most of all I want the plumbing to be inconspicuous).

See my pix below the text - I ran everything to the back. If your cart is exposed underneath, you could tie the lines to the back of a rear leg, or hide them in a length of 2" black PVC pipe, or get creative with some fabric.

how thick are the usual lines for plumbing in and out?

Typical values: supply ~5/8" OD (3/8" ID) in SS braid jacket, drain ~1" OD (3/4" ID) in vinyl.
For the drain hose, use a single length (no joints) with as large an ID as will fit. I believe mine was 7/8" ID with a spiral wire reinforcement, and I had to shim the drain spigot with several wraps of tape to get a snug fit before hose-clamping it. There's little drain slope under the machine, but the only time I ever had trouble with the drain not keeping up was the first day, when I was draining into a bucket and the end of the hose submerged. Clamping it to the edge of the bucket solved that. If you need more slope under the machine, you could swap its legs for longer ones. I like a clear hose, to allow for a visual check for obstruction. In my photo, you can even see some water and a few grounds pooled in the belly of the hose under the machine, and yet it drains flawlessly and is still transparent after almost a year of service. Another thing: NEVER pour dairy products into your drain, or you will eventually develop a god-awful Limburger-factory stink. Only water and coffee go in there, and occasionally some detergent or descaler. My drip tray drains dry from a bottom hole, so it never grows anything or smells bad. In sum, wherever your drain hose goes, bucket or trap, make it a fat one, minimize the horizontal, and terminate it with an AIR GAP.

I am always nervous about water bursting for lines running to dishwashers/washing machines/ ice machines. On the other hand getting water to the machine if I do not use a flojet will require running some form of pipe between the main floor and the basement ceiling (not a drop ceiling, but I don't mind a little patching). Is there a high quality pipe that you don't have to worry about ever bursting, but is easy to run through finished space?

I used copper because I like it (and I had a bunch). When you say "run through finished space" I gather you mean invisibly. You can bury copper/PVC/PEX, but not (by code or common sense) with detachable fittings e.g. John Guest, compression, flare. And any valves must be easily accessible without tools. There are flexible supply lines long enough to reach into a basement, so you could connect down there, which would keep a supply pipe out of your living space. Ideally, you would have a shutoff upstairs, but in my case I have a ball valve in the machine, right after the inlet, which serves me well, barring a stupidity attack on my part, and in that case I would run down to the basement to shut it off, no worse than for a bathtub. In any case, I would talk to a plumber.

If I had one it would be very visible and probably on a cart in the dining room since our kitchen doesn't really have space for such a big machine or for that matter a small one. This means it would have to look good. The better it looks the better chance I have of convincing my wife such a machine is not a bad idea.

I have a very similar setup (also quite similar to the last poster's). I have the machine on a 'Groland' Ikea table in the corner of a dining nook, next to the grinder, and plenty of space on the lower shelf for cleaning supplies, coffee cans, and all the other small items you'll collect over time. Most of the line-in setup (filter, pressure regulator) is in the basement. I drilled a small hole in the very corner of the room, and snaked the line up and underneath the table, through a (second, the first is in the basement) shut-off valve, and a tee that splits one side into the machine and the other through another shut-off valve into a no-frills 'faucet' at the edge of the table. I mention all this because even though it sounds like a lot of piping, everything is perfectly well hidden: the main line loops underneath the lower shelf (secured with zip ties that connect through the holes in the lower shelf), the shutoff valve connects underneath the lower shelf with the handle poking up through one of the holes, the teed off 'faucet' (really just the end of a Pex line with a shutoff valve) snakes along the back leg and up below the main table overhang, hidden between the desk and the wall. May be difficult to picture, but I don't have my camera with me right now ...

1) Does the plumbing from the drip tray have to go straight down or could it wind to the back - ie would I have to drill a hole in the top of the cart? The same question goes for the line in. (I'll probably build a cart and in case I used it for something else later I'd rather not have a hole in it, but most of all I want the plumbing to be inconspicuous).

The drain line goes to the back of the table and snakes down to the small hole in the floor along the back of the table leg that's closest to the corner of the room ... and this is on a Bric, where the drain hookup is fairly far toward the front. The line is mostly invisible, but as others have pointed out, it needs to have a constant slope: I taped a small piece of one of those felt furniture pads to the back of my machine that pushes the line down a bit (keeps it from moving parallel with the machine) and maintains slope. It takes some fiddling, but ultimately works in most cases.

3) I am always nervous about water bursting for lines running to dishwashers/washing machines/ ice machines. On the other hand getting water to the machine if I do not use a flojet will require running some form of pipe between the main floor and the basement ceiling (not a drop ceiling, but I don't mind a little patching). Is there a high quality pipe that you don't have to worry about ever bursting, but is easy to run through finished space? (the joist run the right way - ie parallel to the direction we want the water to run) if that is any help).

Other than copper, I think every pipe has a statistical chance of bursting ... but if it's a good product, that change is very, very minimal. I used Pex tubing, and Sharkbite products for the fittings (well, other than for the drain), and haven't had problems with it so far. Good Pex is certified for underground or in-wall installations, and probably the best bet for both ease of pulling through finished walls and protection against bursting (again, copper may be ideal, but not exactly ease to install in a finished space...)

Good luck! It's a fun project (that's occasionally infuriating), but the payoff is huge.