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How to clean your Saeco Via Venezia Group Handle
A few days ago I realised that my Via Venezia didn't seem to be making the great the coffee that I remember. I had cleaned the machine thoroughly and realised that the handle itself could probably do with a good clean out. I couldn't find any resources on the web which helped on how to do this so I figured it couldn't be that difficult. And it isn't.
It's probably a better idea generally to get your machine professionally serviced by a Saeco service center but I didn't feel like shelling out the cash so decided to give it a go myself. As long as you're careful and don't lose any springs or other small parts (it's okay to lose large parts...) you should be fine. One caveat, if after reading this you're not confident that you're not going to break the group handle then it would worth getting a professional to do this. These handles are not generally considered user servicable, however, if you like taking things apart like me then you won't be able to resist! There's also some good advice on this forum posting about improving the espresso results from this group handle. I'm yet to try this but will do soon.
One thing I found during cleaning for the first time was that the mechanism was really stuffed full with a few years worth of coffee grounds so it was definately worth doing this if your machine is a year or so old and hasn't had a service recently.
1. The first thing to do is remove the filter. This should just slide
out, it may be a bit stiff so you can try levering it out with a coin.
2. Now turn the group handle over and remove the three screws that hold the unit together. Once these have been removed the unit will come apart so make sure you do this carefully to avoid losing any small parts.
3. You now need to carefully remove the springs. The main virtical
spring will just slide off. Remove that and put it somewhere very
safe.
The second spring is the one on right hand side, just unclip it and it should come out easily. You will need to remember the position of this spring for when you replace it.
4. Now gently lift up the pressure stopper, it's hinged so will just lift up easily. You will now be able to see the black plastic ring in the center, this is the base of the plastic seal. You will need to push down on this black ring reasonably firmly, it should unclick.
6. You will now be able to push out the plastic and rubber sealings. The orange rubber seal will pull off easily.
You should now have completely dismantled the group handle.
Clean all the parts with fresh water and mild washing detergent. The main thing to do is to remove any ground coffee that may have worked its way into the mechanism. There's no real need need to go crazy and scrub the whole thing until it's got more shine than a seargent's boot.
7. Now it comes to re-assembly. Place the orange rubber seal back around the plastic seal, then slide it back into the main unit. Push it right to the bottom so that the the black tube part protrudes from the other side.
Once these are lined up, hold the unit with your thumbs underneath and push the mechanism down on to the protruding plastic seal until it clicks into place. It should be straight forward, it shouldn't need to be forced it if it is lined up correctly.
You should now have the black plastic tube clicked into place, gripped by the four pressure points on the mechanism.
10. Now all you need to do is replace the handle cover back over the unit. This part is crucial -You need to make sure that it goes on the correct way, so line up the black plastic nodule marked at point 1 with the indentation in the mechanism marked at point 2. If the orientation is not correct you could break the internal plastic parts when next use the handle so make sure this is correctly orientated before you screw it back together. All three screw holes should line up.
11. Replace the three screws and tighten. The unit now should feel like it fits together correctly, if there is some misalignement or if it won't quite go together correctly then you may have made a mistake earlier on. The spring mechanism should work as you would expect before you took it to pieces!
12. Now replace the filter. You should now have a nice clean group handle
Hope this guide has been useful for someone. I know the coffee coming from my beautiful little machine has improved since doing this.
