I descaled my Europiccola this morning using 4 cups of water and a tbs of citric acid. Let it sit for a couple of hours, dumped, rinsed 3 times and then filled it with water and turned both elements on. The problem is it never started the moaning/hissing sounds. Now water/steam is escaping from the seal where the group head attaches to the boiler. I plan on rebuilding the group one day, but not today. Is it possible something got stuck in the ball valve? Should I give it another descale? Any help would be great. I've attached a photo of the ID plate, if that helps.

thanks in advance!

Probably loosened up some scale and have a dry o ring on the group head to boiler that is cracked. Easy fix, two bolts and a new oring from Stephanos or OE.

Another descale will not help.

There isn't a ball valve unless you are talking steam or pressure relief. Picture isn't attached so I can't tell what version you have.

Here's the photo and yes, I meant the steam valve.

If it's got enough leaks, it may not build enough pressure for the safety valve to open. It's rebuild time.

I figured maybe that was the case, although it worked fine last evening. Can someone tell from that photo what model I have?

You need to provide an image of the whole machine. There may be a date of manufacture inside if you should remove the bottom cover. There are several clues that can provide age information. First, of course, is the group. There are three generations of them. The second generation ones had the most changes. There are different types of portafilters, different types of caps, different types of steam wands, different types of sight glass covers. However there were also changes in first and third generation ones.

Note that some of La Pavoni Europiccolas have too short bolts holding the group to the boiler. Their specification calls for 14mm long ones, but many are only 12. Mine began to strip, and only taking action prevented an extremely serious problem. The threaded bore is deep, but they provided short bolts on some. Do not replace with ordinary steel bolts, use brass or stainless. Because mine was stripped I replaced them with a stainless steel threaded rod long enough to the bottom of the bore, I used acorn (dome) nuts for cosmetic effect. The O ring seal is a common size, you can probably find a replacement in an hardware store if you do not want to wait for one to be shipped to you.

Thanks -- I'll take and post some more photos. On both Stephano's site and Orphan Espresso's they just have two rebuild kits, pre-millenium and millennium. I guess I just have to figure out which type I have.

Hopefully this will help

Looks like you have the second gen group, and two switches which means you want the 'pre-millennium' rebuild kit.

This is an Europiccola from the 1980s. It has two switches. It has the older (better) metal sight glass cover. It has the older (better) brass based boiler cap. It has the boiler with "lips", meaning it was probably post 1981 or so.