At work, our espresso machine broke down. The pump giving the 9 bars of pressure for the groups won’t start. But when manual flushing it works fine. Local coffee machine supplier Autobev says it’s the circuit boards. My guess is they were fried by a couple of successive power outages and a generator that did not kick in properly not timely.
On an island where everything is shipped in or flown in for emergencies, getting spare parts or qualified technicians is a bit of challenge.
We have several choices:
- Get full service from local company and have them order parts and do repairs
- Order spare parts from US and fly them in to have local company do repairs
- Ship machine to US to have it serviced under warranty and then ship it back
- Buy a new machine locally
- Buy a new machine in US and ship it to the island
Options 1-3 take several weeks, three at best, and there is no espresso in the mean time.
Option 4 could be good but depends on local supplies. On an island that still consumes vast amounts of instant Folgers, Maxwell House and Nescafé Coffee the odds are against you.
Option 5 is good but also takes at least 2 weeks.
We’re still looking at alternatives but lessons learned are:
- Put equipment with circuitry on surge suppressors
- Get a backup espresso machine for emergencies while your machine gets repairs
- Get the numbers of all your equipment’s customer service and hotlines ready for the grab
No Pressure Coffee 