After a few weeks of being coffee-deprived, I decided to disassemble my espresso machine and see if I could figure out why it leaked water while on, and didn’t have enough pressure to produce drinkable coffee.
I live a bit on the edge of where other people do, so my water supply is from my own pump, 40 meters into the ground. It’s as hard as water gets. That was my main suspicion. I read a bit about it on the interwebz and learned about descaling, which I’d never heard about. I tried some of the home-made potions but nothing seemed to work.
Long story short, I’m enjoying a perfect espresso as I write this.
I wanted to share a bit with the internet people about what was hard to solve, and couldn’t find any instructions on. All I really did was disassemble the whole thing completely, part by part, clean them, and make sure to put it back together tightening everything that seemed to need pressure.
I don’t have the time and energy to put together a step-by-step walk-through, so here’s the 2 tips I can give you:
1) Remove ALL the screws. That’ll get you there 95% there. You’ll need a philips head, a torx head, a flat head and some small-ish pliers.
2) The knob that releases the steam looks unremovable and blocks you from getting the top lid off. It doesn’t screw off, you just need to pull upwards with some strength and care. It comes off cleanly and will go back on easily. Here’s a picture to prove it:
Hope this helps somebody!
Martin Albisetti's blog 
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