Twice a year I do the major overhaul on the La Spaziale, around Christmas and on the 4th of July as those dates are easy to remember and I usually have a little time off (I descale the Bunn Airpot brewer as well).
I've had that machine for 2 years now, pulling at least 6 and as many as 20-30 doubleshots every day. Conservatively I would say that I have pulled 7000 individual extractions now, or about 20? apiece from the $1400 that I paid for it (thanks Liftoff!). In reality it is probably over 10,000 pulls. The thing that really blows my mind is how durable it is. I am running three filters inline including a ion exchange resin for removal of the predominant scaling metals (Fe, Ca, Mg), and they seem to be doing a pretty good job. I hate to tempt fate, but I would expect this bad boy is still in his early youth. Looks like it was a pretty good investment, as well - with the exchange rate disadvantage vs. the Euro, these things have gone up quite a bit.
Just wanted to post regarding the maintenance schedule - it seems to work for me - but I'm just kind of curious what other folks do...
