Huston.... I have a problem

[motoman]

Your help or advice will be appreciated...............

For a year now my lovely La Valentina has sat on the floor in a sorry state. The E61 gasket is broken and bits sticking out around the joint, The steam wand aint doing its job and the micro switch under the water tank is frozen due to water damage. Overfilling the tank, rust.........

My fault entirely, I have meant to strip and repair the faults but have at last had to admit to old age and poor health. Loss of balance and dizzy spells prevent me from making a decent attempt at servicing the parts.

Can anyone advise me of a decent service engineer or company in the West Midlands who can pick up and return my machine as is, I cannot pack it in a box due to the weight. The cost is not important as she deserves better than the treatment I gave her.

[GreenBean]

Sorry to hear about your problems, Pete. Hopefully someone who can personally recommend a service engineer/business will be along. In the meantime you might want to have a look at these lists of service engineers:

http://www.aiee.org.uk

http://www.liminicoffee.co.uk/espresso_ ... epair.html

[espressomattic]

The only person I recall is RobC who is a member here, but he is based in West Yorkshire. His company is Pennine Tea and Coffee. Rob is very helpful.

01422 321969

If he can't help you, I should think he can point you in the right way.

[dr.chris]

Scott at HD mentioned someone down his way when I was asking about repairs to my Anna (still not sorted - going to have to buy the controller and hope thats it).

What we did try was talking to the local(ish) decent independent coffee shop (coffeefix) and ask them if they knew of someone. They did but it seems that the someone only does cafes but it might be worth a shot.

[motoman]

Thanks for your help guys, I shall tour the local coffee shops and try to get info on their service operators.

I will keep you up to date on progress as it seems a good idea to have a database of service operators we can call on.

[motoman]

After contacting the manufacturers of my BFC junior (La Valentina) in Italy, I have been given the name of their UK distributor: Coffee Passion! I think these were the people I contacted first and was given the Italian factory details, seems what goes around comes around.
Anyway; I am hopeful that I may soon be able to send my lovely but slightly battered lady for a complete overhaul.

[GreenBean]

Hi Pete, it is wonderful to see you around here I hope that Coffee Passion can get it sorted soon for you. You have been without for far too long now

[CakeBoy]

Hi Pete, how are things? It's insane how long you have had to wait. Maybe if that fails it might be worth considering a pallet and sending her to a decent engineer?

[motoman]

Thanks guys, it was picked up by courier yesterday and will be delivered to Coffee Passion on Monday. It will have the full strip down, rebuild service and I have already sold a leg and a kidney to pay for it.
The big problem in England is finding an engineer who will work on domestic machines. I was lucky enough to find the name of the manager in Italy who initially sold me the machine, he put me in touch with the UK office and it all went well from there.
During my search and enquiries I had many offers to repair it but then discovered that in my haste I had almost committed to send it to New Zealand for repair. It seems that everywhere else on Earth there are people who fix domestic machines, Here there are none, zilch, nada and zero unless you have a pet engineer tucked away under the kitchen sink. Even the companies that sell domestic E61 machines here do not offer service. OK, so my BFC Junior (La Valentina) has a very small footprint in this country, however; in the USA they are very well regarded and there are many suppliers that accept service contracts from left handed spanner users like me.
Will let you know when I get her up and running.

[CakeBoy]

Shocking really. I hope she is back with you fit and well very soon.

[dr.chris]

We were very lucky in the end with the guy we found. He does mainly do cafes and he is insanely busy, covering sites everywhere from North Wales through to Yorkshire, but then I think he is also a little insane. He was good fun when he came around.

There does seem to be a lack of decent engineers though. The first guy we had through the door is probably fine for a lot of work but he didnt have the passion or the curiosity of the last guy.

[motoman]

Please excuse the following paragraph, I am rather please:

She arrived this morning in her large red chauffeur driven carriage. I greeted her at the door and escorted her to her usual comfy seat in the kitchen, she soon settled in and rewarded me with her warmth and glittering charm.

Enough already, back to earth.

La Valentina is here and I'm loving it, my first drink, taking in that I had to adjust the grind, amount and every other setting, was amazing. The steam pressure would make Mallard look slow and I am please to confirm that my legendary latte art is even worse than ever.
All I have to do now is convince Julie, when she is here next week, that the Aeropress she gave me is getting a well earned rest.
My main fault in the poor condition was sloppy filling of the tank, overspill had rusted the base of the tank shelf and seized the pressure micro switch, over pressure had broken the E61 gasket and the steam valve (ULKA Type EX5) I know that coz they sent it with the machine.
The local water here leaves a lot of scale so I must improve my filtration from simple Brita to something more robust. Will scour the site as I know it had been discussed before.
She was worth every penny of the refurb and selling my son's kidney to pay for it was worthwhile.

[dr.chris]

[simonp]

Good news

[CakeBoy]

Well done Pete Sorted at last, and just in time for lovely Christmas coffee too. I'm so pleased