The S1 Cafe - Helping Your Espresso Dreams Become Reality

Hi,

My first post on what looks like an excellent resource for Vivaldi buyers and users.

I'm considering upgrading from a Silvia to a Vivaldi Mini MkII. In addition to not having to be plumbed in, an important issue for me is that I spend most of the year outside the UK and the Mini would stay in the UK.

At present, I drain the Silvia's boiler (very easy) before I leave, and it can be up to 7 months before I fill and use it again.

I just wondered if anyone has experience draining the Mini, or S1, boilers please, or could advise if this is something to avoid doing with the Mini, in which case I will probably go back to looking at HX machines as replacements for the Silvia.

You might wonder why anyone would buy a quite expensive machine and then leave it idle for most of the year. It's a good question. I bought the Silvia to find out if I enjoyed making coffee based drinks, which I do, then upgrade fever kicked in, and also I now don't want to go through re-learning the Silvia and temp surfing every time I start using it again.

Thanks for any help offered.

EgyMat wrote:I just wondered if anyone has experience draining the Mini, or S1, boilers please, or could advise if this is something to avoid doing with the Mini, in which case I will probably go back to looking at HX machines as replacements for the Silvia.

My impression is that your goal is total evacuation of water from both boilers, as opposed to merely draining the level(s) down. The steam boiler in the S1 is fairly straightforward in that you can remove the drain plug in the bottom of the boiler and then open the steam valve.

Were I to be regularly evacuating both boilers, I think I might investigate setting up a convenient way of using air pressure rather than gravity.

While the S1/VII boiler has a drain plug that can be unscrewed through the bottom of the chassis for easy draining, the Mini's "half" boiler is above the water tank so it may not be that easy.

The group boiler has a threaded cap on top that you can remove and then siphon or pump the water out. I'm not sure if the Mini-boiler has an easier mechanism or not. Hopefully, a Mini owner will chime in with the definitive answer.