The S1 Cafe - Helping Your Espresso Dreams Become Reality

Hello All, Im so glad I found this place!!!

I have a S1 Dream that I purchase in 2009. while I try to back flush it weekly, Im not sure what else I should be doing to the machine on a regular basis. I live in Las Vegas where the water is pretty hard. My Dream stays on for 5 hours a day and its daily work load is usually between 4-6 shot every day. Lately I've notice that the drip tray is filling at a rate where I have to empty it about every two days.

I've read a post here about a drip tray filling and it kinda confirms my suspicions that there's some sort of debris (probably calcium from the hard water here) preventing a valve from completely closing. I've also recently noticed that the hot water outlet is dripping ever so slightly, mainly when the machine is heating up. We mainly drink espresso shots and americanos, so the hot water outlet gets heavily used.

Questions:

Im assuming that my Dream is similar enough to the Vivaldi to follow the instructions found here about Expansion Valve and Group Pressure Adjustment. can someone comment of this?

can anyone comment on fixing my slightly leaky hot water outlet?

and any other recommendations to keep this machine working well in a very hard water environment. ie. should I be thinking about disassembling any boilers to clean? I'm a little worried that the heating elements are all caked with calcium but im not sure how to check this, is it important, or if the boilers are even serviceable.

thank you and as always questions, comments, and just plain (funny) wise crack remarks are all welcomed

K

You probably need to clean or replace the hot water solenoid to fix the Hot Water drippage. As for the drip tray filling up quickly, the fix depends on which place the water is coming from. If it's the pipe on the left, it is the Coffee Boiler, If it is the pipe on the right to the left of the expansion valve, then you need to clean or replace the 3-way solenoid. If it is from the expansion valve (just to the right of the 3-way tube), ieither the expansion valve needs to be adjusted or else the internal o-ring needs to be replaced.

Thank You Chas !!! I didn't know there were two outflow spouts... thanks again

My Bad. I was talking about my GS/3 which actually has four tubes that empty into the drip tray. I think the Dream does just have two tubes that are side by side on the right. The naked copper one on the left comes from the 3-way valve and the one on the right of that one includes the expansion valve.