Here comes an embarrassing yet possibly instructive confession....

I use a Brita jug with latest "Maxtra" filters (which are supposed to be better than the old ones for hard water) and could see no sign of scale in my Cremina despite not having had the opportunity to descale it during the upheaval of a couple of recent house moves.

When the lever became a little rough and the piston started leaking a little from above and below, I immediately assumed I need to replace the gaskets (almost 2 years old) and decided to descale before doing so. Much to my surprise this completely cured the problem. The group head is now dry as a bone and the Cremina working perfectly.

So, the moral of the story is that these poor gaskets are more hardwearing that one might imagine and that whatever a filter manufacturer tells you, regular descaling and emptying of the tank is good practice. And of course if you find your beloved lever machine leaking or performing below par, it may need nothing more than a good descaling.

I'm rushing off to put the citric acid in my cremina NOW.

thanks for the reminder.

Something I have noted on both the Cremina and Elektra is I think that roughness on the upstroke of the piston (pulling up on a manual lever/down on a spring lever) can indicate scaling of the barrel. That's logical since you are more likely to notice the effects of scale when the piston is running free, not pushing against the resistance of the puck.

Something I do when descaling the Cremina is to pump the piston without bringing it all the way up to the top, so that no water actually comes through. This circulates the descaling solution behind the piston. You can see what I mean more clearly perhaps from the diagram Steve Robinson posted in his great write-up of one of the early "2002" models: Olympia Cremina 2002: The evolution of design.

After my recent "scaling embarrassment" the upstroke was once again beautifully smooth, so I attribute the roughness entirely to scaling. And there must have been tons if the piston was dripping a couple of teacups of water over the course of a day. In fact, it's real testimony to the quality of the gaskets that they held up and are now working as good as new.

Having taken quite a few of these machines apart....and some pretty gnarly ones at that, I can add these observations. Scale does not build up on the cylinder walls per se as the seals act to sweep any bits of scale generally upward to the stop point of the top gasket. This results in a line of deposit around the cylinder which can score the surface if left long enough. The cup lip of the top gasket also accumulates debris of various sorts (I try not to think about it as I remove the seals but there can actually be dead bug bodies and such the like in that seal...whatever makes its way into the machine over time) The metal rod clip and 4 hole washer also are a point where scale will actually deposit on the metal but any debris will find its way into the rod seal itself, possibly accounting for the jerky feel of the lever. Some flake debris can lodge in the dispersion screen as well but this is usually full of coffee crap rather than scale. The syphon tube can show a restriction at the group end as well as the take up end. Most of the scale is present on the heating element and surrounds, but this is the source of the floaters that make their way into the cylinder and steam wand.

I always enjoy the fact that there can be so much gunk crap and general bull inside of an ill maintained machine and the owner generally carries on about water purity and life's vital essences not knowing that all of this general nastiness is going on behind the curtain.

A couple of additional comments having thought about things more:

Firstly, I leave my Cremina on all day, which works very well for me, however that means that it is more likely to scale up behind the piston. And since it can sit for hours between shots, this means that the automatic cleaning of the bore action that Doug describes above may not keep things as clean as on machines without water behind the piston or on Creminas that are, say used, just for half in hour in the morning or whatever.

So if you are an all-day-long person, it pays to be particularly disciplined about your cleaning. The Cremina is more forgiving than many machines - which is to say it is easy to compensate for increased stiffness without noticing it, whereas a spring lever would give you an earlier wake-up call.

Secondly, regular preventive maintenance is of course best and I find from another thread Info request for Cremina 67 owners that Doug has tons of very good information on this on the Orphan Espresso website http://www.orphanespresso.com/Olympia-Cremina-Group-Maintenance-NAG_ep_622-1.html.

My Export only takes ten minutes to heat. If you were to plan ahead 15 minutes you could turn the machine off between shots couldn't you?

PC

You're definitely right there, Peacecup, but I work from home writing all day and love just being able to wander off to the machine and pull a shot to take an immediate short break that refreshes my concentration in more ways than one.

Being able to leave the Cremina on all day is one of the things I love about it..... it's sheer luxury!