Circa 2004 S1V1 (and original owner). Has needed minimal maintenance (just a group gasket). Somewhat hard water for the most recent 13 years, then a year of storage, now 6 months of fairly soft water. We only run it for lattes in the morning.
The past 2 days I've been getting more water than usual when "blowing off" the steam wand before starting the frothing. Yesterday it just made me go "hmmm...." Today it was enough "more water" that it immediately brought me to the board. Also noticed more steam than normal out of the hot water dispenser (I use it to rinse the frothing wand at the end of clean up).
After searching and just general reading of a bunch of threads, I turned it back on to watch it and noticed the needle (round gauge) getting a little into the red. Normally it was dead on the line. There also seemed to be a little creep upwards in pressure as the machine went through a couple of steam boiler heat cycles.
It has not thrown an error nor do a see or hear steam or water where it shouldn't be.
I found this in reference to a Mini's problem:
Would y'all say that should be our first line of attack?
Thanks,
Michelle