At the end of each year, I open up my machine and conduct a complete inspection. The unit was purchased as a BII vib, and was manufactured in October of 2005. I've since upgraded the unit a few years back with a rotary pump and installed the PID offered by WWL. The unit is plumbed in and feed by it's own filtration system and runs on its own timer. As part of my annual maintenance, I perform a boiler descale, replace broken tie wraps, inspect the mixing tube and check all the wiring and plumbing. I've seen various opinions regarding the merits of retrofitting the controller with a PID. I can't say the quality of my shots improved, but I can say the reliability of the machine has improved tremendously since the change. I run my machine approximately 1,800 hours a year and I seemed to fry the original temp probe every two years. I had gone through one controller and two or three sets of probes prior to the change. Since upgrading, the only component that seems to fail with any regularity is the pressure-stat. Since changing to the Jaeger model of P-Stat, I've stretched that failure to a two-three year cycle.
The steam valve will probably need to be replaced in the coming year, but for the most part the machine appears to be in great shape. Yes, owning your own machine can be really frustrating, but six years later the machine still brews a great shot pull after pull. Even with all of the buzz over this year's new machines, I have absolutely no desire to upgrade. Can't even remember my last sink shot. 11,256 operating hours and still going strong. So keep up on your maintenance and don't forget the TLC and your Brewtus will provide you with many years of service. Thanks everyone for all of your help over the years. Rob -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
