tyw13 wrote:I ended up getting it at a cheaper price. Any way you can give me some advice on running it without having a water line ran for now?

Wow - If it works I think you made out like a bandit. The Giotto Professional does have a rotary pump and as Ira says it should pull fine from a nearby bottle. In that coffeesnobs thread that I linked earlier, one of the posters was pulling from a 5 gallon container above the machine. Note that this reviewer of the Giotto Professional seemed to have problems pulling from a jug, but I suspect that was a case of priming issues. You can address that by adding a check valve on the intake hose to assure that the water line stays reliably primed. And of course you'll want to adjust your rotary pump bypass for the brew pressure you want - - it is affected by the inlet pressure.

tyw13 wrote:Thanks! Any idea how well the flojet works or holds up?

I've never used one but I've seen many who have and have not had issues. Your espresso machine will be the pump, the flojet just pressurizes the system to provide line pressure like you would have when direct plumbing the machine.

homeburrero wrote: pulling from a 5 gallon container above the machine.

I was debating getting a flojet set up any advise or experience using it?

Lots of threads here that you can find with the Search feature.

There are simple, pump only options, as well as more complex ones, like Espresso Cart - Goodbye Plumbed In

tyw13 wrote:Thanks! Any idea how well the flojet works or holds up?

Flojet type pumps are the main sort of pump used in boats, motorhomes, and trailers. They work very well and are reliable. Other common brands of similar pumps are Shurflo https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E5UV0W8/ and Aquatec https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007KDXH5U/. There's a thread comparing Flojet and Aquatec here A Flojet Alternative: Aquatec
Edit: Oops, that Shurflo link is for a 12-volt pump, but they have them for 120.

A flojet-like setup has an advantage over just letting the machine's pump pull from a jug. On these machines some people like to use the lever's midway position to pre-wet / pre-infuse the coffee bed. With a flowjet or similar you can have a consistent 2 or 3 bars of waterline pressure filling the brew chamber when the brew valve is open but the lever cam is not yet activating the pump. Without this line pressure you get an unpredictable prewetting from whatever pressure is in the HX when you open the valve, but is not nearly as good or repeatable as what you'd get from waterline pressure.

Of course if you're serious about flow/pressure profiling with this group you would go with an E-61 flow control device kit that does that, which works irrespective of waterline pressure.