Hi everyone,

I just bought a second hand but lightly used 3.5 year old Avanti Siena deluxe. Prior to buying it, I had never heard of the brand or the model; however after looking into the specifications it seemed like a good buy. Basically an E61 heat exchanger with a rotary pump.

So the owner had it plumbed in and never used the water tank. When I brought it home, I filled the tank and placed it where it's supposed to go and made sure it was sitting properly, and turned the manual switch in the back from "Rete" to "Tanica" which I assume means waterline and tank. Turned the machine on and the pump did not kick in, no matter the position of the lever. When I switched it back to rete briefly, the pump kicked in but obviously it's not plumbed in so I quickly turned it off.

Any ideas? The user manual is not descriptive at all and doesn't even go over using the reservoir vs plumbing it in. Also there is barely anything on the web about the machine at all.

Then, almost certainly, when switched to reservoir the machine is checking that the reservoir has water before trying to pump it...
So start at whatever is there to sense the water in the reservoir, be it a floating magnet and reed switch or electrical connection grounded through the screw in the receiver.

Will the seller not make it work or pay to have it repaired?

It doesn't look like it has any methods of water level detection in the reservoir.

The seller had no clue what he had. It was a professional gift and he only used it for hot water...

JRising wrote:Then, almost certainly, when switched to reservoir the machine is checking that the reservoir has water before trying to pump it...
So start at whatever is there to sense the water in the reservoir, be it a floating magnet and reed switch or electrical connection grounded through the screw in the receiver.

Will the seller not make it work or pay to have it repaired?

So it does have a slot for a magnetic float however the magnet did not come with it. I took the one I had in my other machine and placed it in the slot in the water tank however the same issue persists

Update.

The magnetic flow I had doesn't work with the machine due to sizing. So I took the housing off and held it in front of the sensor and the pump kicks in however it does not suck up the water. Maybe air-locked?

Maybe.
That's what you'll have to look into next. Forcibly prime it with a squeexe bottle or something if you think that will help. Check the path from reservoir to pump inlet. Any inline plastic filters? Any check valves? Any Solenoid Valves? I can't see the machine, I can only guess. You'll have to do some.

Priming the pump with a syringe and pumping water into the intake tube did nothing. I'm afraid letting the pump run for more than a few seconds would damage something like the element or the pump itself.

Update. Used a larger syringe and primed it more forcibly and it worked!

Alright... Lastly, I suppose, if you post a photo of the reservoir's magnetic-float slot, someone might know which magnetic float you want to look for.