Hi to all,

I wanted to share my experience with plumbing my espresso machine hoping this could help anyone in the future.
While water plumbing is pretty straightforward, there is a lot of posts about it, the drain part was more a challenge for me. I was getting a hard time getting a good, steady consistent flow from my drain pan to the home drain system.

In addition, this post is also about the modifications I made to my drain pan, again hoping this can help other ECM owners.

ECM makes incredible machines, but I felt like I could improve the conception of the drain pan.

First, the outlet on the plastic drain pan is too low to permit a correct slope all the way to the back of the machine and end of countertop.

Second, the pan outlet is centered. With the screws underneath the machine obstructing the way, I feel like this not the best place to route a drain straight to the back of the machine.

So I started to design a new drain pan with the following features :

• Higher outlet. To make up for loss of volume, I scaled considerably the size of the pan to maximized unused space.

• Offset outlet. I moved the outlet to the left (when watching from front) to be in-line with what I think is a better option for routing.

I came up with this :



From the I connected a 5/8 ID tube with collets straight, all the way to the back of my counter top.
What I started next was to drill my counter top and route the drain pipe to a p-trap under the sink, connected to the house drain.

Drain flow was very poor mainly because the drain tube diameter was to small to permit water to drain but also air coming out.
I thought about this and I needed to install a Tee, right before going trough the countertop for two reasons : Bigger drain pipe and admit air.

So I designed a second plastic adapter :



I took a 1 x 1 x 5/8 adapter. One of the 1" barbed en is cut and epoxy-glued to the adapter. That way I am achieving an installation similar to this :








I am very satisfied now with the flow I get !
I can properly clean my pan and I don't get any backflow.

I tried to document every step taken without going to much into details but will be pleased to answer any questions about my installation.