# Sage Oracle - when to descale?



## Philealing (Sep 18, 2017)

I have had my Sage Oracle for eleven months. I always clean it properly when the CLEAN ME message appears. I have assumed a DESCALE ME message appears when I need to descale it. Am I wrong? Should I have been descaling it before now?


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## Jony (Sep 8, 2017)

Location would be good. Are you using bottle water.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

Does this Oracle come with the new resin based water filter ? That would be relevant but I'm not sure how use of the machines descale message is handled when that is fitted. The earlier filter machines came with a test strip to check water hardness and the number that gave was entered into the machine.

I just replied to a comment in the DB descaling thread. No point repeating it here. Really what people choose to do is up to them and using the descale message should be ok but maybe not. The problem is that when machines have reported problems there is no way of knowing what has been done to them. Then there is the every 2 months engineer comment. I've only seen that on here.

John

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## ronsil (Mar 8, 2012)

Philealing said:


> I have had my Sage Oracle for eleven months. I always clean it properly when the CLEAN ME message appears. I have assumed a DESCALE ME message appears when I need to descale it. Am I wrong? Should I have been descaling it before now?


The 'Descal' message appears very briefly at start up & then disappears very quickly. Can easily be missed.

Our water is very soft normally except during the recent heatwave when United Utilities were adding 'bore hole' water which made it very hard. All over now,hopefully.

Although we have soft water I descale & change filter every 3 months


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## Philealing (Sep 18, 2017)

Jony said:


> Location would be good. Are you using bottle water.


The question was more to with with whether or not there is a DESCALE NOW" display message or not. FYI I do only use bottled water.


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## Nicknak (Aug 10, 2018)

aJohn that was me re sage engineers recommendation ..

Firstly I live in a very Hard tap water area in The Sutton/ Wallington area .. At the time I was using tap water thru a Brita Jug and the supplied resin tank filter .

i had the Sage Oracle from new for a few weeks and noticed that the pressure seemed to have dropped at the brew head . I went through Sage and they put me in contact with Coffee Classic who do the white Glove service ,service and repairs for Sage ..

it turned out the resin filter had blocked/exhausted itself ..

when talking to Coffee classic on how best to maintain and keep the machine well I was told

" Not to rely on the machine to tell me and descale more regularly at least every two months and to change the resin filters more regularly as well "

After the second descale the machine died .. Sage customer service not impressive so I returned the machine to Lakeland..

There is another thread going as mentioned where some of the more knowledgeable than I are discussing water and descaling...

After I returned the oracle I received this from Sage

"Did you get a valve message at any point of the descale process ....(No I didn't just)

Did you stay with the machine throughout the whole process? (yes I did)

The reason why I ask is if the valves are not released correctly or the machine is left for more than 20 minutes. (No I didn't)It cause the machine to over heat and blow the thermal fuse causing the machine not to get up to temperature.

Hope this helps

all the best Nick


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## Nicknak (Aug 10, 2018)

Philealing

i belive it does show up a descale demand dependant on water hardness selected and use age .. also change filter similar to the clean me ..

I never got the message up..

if any one is interested I have 4 sage resin filters to give away


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

Out of interest I have a feeling why the overheat and blown thermal fuse may happen. It can also blow the heating element. It's what happened on my first refurb the first time it powered up. They appear to anticipate that the water tank will fill. In other words detect one level of water and turn the heating on assuming it will reach some other level. On mine the pumps from the noise they made where clearly spending a lot of time pumping air. The other reason it might happen if course is the level sensing misbehaving. They do use more than one level sensor.

The Sage questions and 20min are interesting. I did find some comments from people who were fixing them also some older Breville pages with descale instructions along with machine serial numbers. There were 3 sets of those and I suspect that the 2nd set were the ones that matched the machines that were being repaired. Not many were made and the repair comments mentioned heating coming on when the tank was empty. The posts were years old.

Your mention of resin filters is interesting. Most assume the old filter is just a carbon type. It isn't big enough to have much impact for long if it has resin in it anyway.

I also saw a comment about the DB's level sensing somewhere. It didn't sound bad but wasn't complimentary. 2nd hand originally from an engineer. I have seen an image of one of the sensors that was rather discoloured nearer the top.

To be honest the questions you were asked don't make much sense to me as didn't the ones I was asked when I reported a faulty BE grinder. They sounded more like information gathering. In my case they were

"Did you have the grinder running when you adjusted it". "Yes if it was a significant adjustment other than initially. I noticed the stiffness before using it that way. Sage do not mention doing this but other grinder makers do". Reply I know.

"Did you remove burrs for cleaning." " Yes both of them once as it's the only way to clean it thoroughly." (







That's why they sell spare felt washers.) Same reply. I don't think that caused the problem anyway. The adjustment had a tight spot around a setting of 4. While completely clean I ran it back and forth from max to min and that went. That could be the cause but I suspect it happened before cleaning when I was working at a coarser setting than I usually use.

I left it like that as had run out of beans. When I had more same problem - not adjusting over the full range. 2 weeks ago I finally got at my DTI and to check and lo it isn't. Haven't phoned then again yet.

To be honest I want to run my DB into the ground and see what happens and why. That means giving it a fair chance including descaling. Water in my case may as well be regarded as bottled. That's what I would be using if I lived in a hard water area. RO units. Not sure. I used to work with a lot of industrial chemists. If using that I would probably make up my long blacks with the kettle and straight ordinary tap water.







You might say I know too much about the stuff and as a consequence be more concerned than I need to be. Personally I am glad I knew about descaling and espresso machines before buying one. I can't see retailers asking people where they live and how hard their water is. Sage at least make an attempt to get round that. It sounds like it may not work out in some areas but why should any other make not have similar problems there. At least Sage can be descaled easily.

John

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## Philealing (Sep 18, 2017)

Thanks Ron. I looked out for that message when I made my morning's coffee but nothing at any point. Making about ten shots every day I would have thought the message would be appearing after over 3,000 shots.

Thanks to everyone who responded. This is my third attempt at posting a reply. Let's hope this one posts successfully.


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## Philealing (Sep 18, 2017)

As a postscript.... I had a response from Sage as follows

"Yes you should have a message on the screen that will ask you to descale the unit however our advise would be not to wait for the unit to do so and simply descale it every 4-6 weeks in a hard water area. Now because you're using filtered water, every 3-4 months should be fine. Ensure that you're also using the sage descaling powder too."


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