What Are the Most Common Parts on a Coffee Machine to Break?
It’s a sad and unfair fact of life; things break. Whether it’s your vehicle, your watch or your coffee machine – there is more than likely going to be one link in the chain that doesn’t measure as strong the others.
We explain the most likely components to fail or break on every type of coffee machine, and what steps you can take to prolong the life of these components:
What Breaks First on a Filter Coffee Machine?
Filter coffee machines are – by their own design – exceptionally simplistic and therefore are subject to far less mechanical failures. That being said, the component most likely to fail on a filter coffee machine (household variants) is the heating plate. This may malfunction to cause the plate to either overheat, or not heat whatsoever.
The good news is that if you switch over from using a household filter coffee machine to a commercial or industrial type, you eliminate this possibility. Commercial heating plates are self-regulated, so not only will they avoid ceasing to work – they work better than any other type of household coffee machine!
What Breaks First on an Automatic Bean to Cup Machine?
Bean to Cup machines are a one-stop solution for making café quality coffee; if your automatic machine has an internal coffee grinder, this is sadly likely the first component to fail. This can be due to overuse, incorrect use (using coffee beans with sticks and stones not filtered out before adding to the machine) – as well as the use of pre-flavoured coffee beans.
Flavoured coffee beans are coated in a sticky, oil-like substance which gradually causes an irremovable build-up on the grinder, decreasing its efficiency and eventually causing it to fail. Foreign items such as stones or sticks present in poor quality coffee beans will damage the grinder immediately – either causing the coffee it grinds thereon out to be inferior, or causing the grinder to cease altogether.
The best way to avoid this is to remove any items that may be present in your coffee beans, avoid the use of flavoured coffee beans entirely – and ensure that the machine is used within good guidelines.
If you have succumbed to the unfortunate event of your machines grinder already giving in, it may be a good idea to take it to a local repairer or to the supplier if it is still under warranty.
What Breaks First on a Coffee Vending Machine?
Coffee vending machines have the highest number of internal components that need to be taken care of; there are canisters, chutes, pipes, locking mechanisms, buttons and the dispenser to account for.
However, if you make use of regular sugar inside your coffee machine (as opposed to the smaller sized vending sugar) – you may be exposing yourself to running the risk of your mixing gear becoming damaged. The mixing gear essentially “stirs” the ingredients together inside the machine before it is dispensed, and with the use of the incorrect ingredients, the gear may not be able to cope with the extra work required to mix.
The best way to avoid this type of situation from happening is to make use of ONLY the ingredients deemed safe by the supplier or manufacturer.
What Breaks First on a Capsule Coffee Machine?
Capsule coffee machines have possibly the widest variety of makes and models of all types of coffee machines; again, due to the simplistic nature of these machines’ build, the only real component subject to failure is the area into which you would typically insert the capsule. The main reasons for this happening can be due to the incorrect insertion of the capsule, or use of an incompatible capsule altogether.
If this occurs in an instance where you have not been negligible in your use of the machine, or made use of incorrect coffee capsules, it may be a manufacturer faults. If your machine is still under warranty, take it back to the supplier or manufacturer to assess and rectify the fault.
However, if this is due to the aforementioned reasons, then there is no recourse which you can follow. The best way to ensure you coffee capsule machine does not encounter this failure is to always use the correct pods, in a safe way – and ensure that when the coffee has been dispensed – the pods is carefully removed and any visible residue cleaned off.
Need some coffee machine selection advice? Click here to get in contact with us today!