Silvia v1

If you have room consider picking up a used Silvia (version doesn't matter as long as machine is working and doesn't look bad inside with the top off. They can be had reasonably if you keep your eyes open. I have had this setup for 5 or 6 years. Both of my Silvias are V1 no PID.

My sister now has the Silvia I had for 20 plus years. It's a V1 and, after a new grouphead gasket she's very pleased with it. I had less trouble with Silvia. My new Profitec Pro 600 needed a new steamer heating element, and I just replaced the steamer SSR (Solid State Relay) which sends power to the steam boiler. 😪

I think you set yourself up for a future grinder upgrade :) For me it was hard spending a lot on the grinder(s) initially, I had a Silvia v1 for many years with a plastic 100 euro Solis grinder, then came a Demoka Mini Moka, then a Ceado e37s and then a new espresso machine, now with Mahlkonig and Mazzer. I enjoyed my coffee all the time, I will say the step up in grinders had me wish an earlier move as they had a bigger impact (got the Ceado just before my ecm hx machine arrived and it boosted the Silvia to a new level. When the ecm died I switched back to the Silvia without too much complaint or drop in quality (a better machine is just a lot easier to maximize and consistently pull good quality)

On my old Silvia it took me from brew start 0:30 brew (two cups), till 1:48 heat up for steam, till 2:30 steam, till 2:45 swirl and pour. On my Micra it takes: start brew, 0:15 done with milk and swirl, 0:30 brew done (two cups), 0:35 cappuccino done 0:41 for two cappuccino. More fancy latte art adds a little time Machine clean makes the dual boiler a little slower as the single boiler gets cleaned during the heat up so add 10 seconds, but almost 2 minutes faster. For parties there is no cool down making a single boiler unusably slow (4-5 minutes per shot in my case) so we just did filter.

After 2000 that was V1 territory. Not exactly sure when the V2 started but I'm guessing 2003 or later. I had a working PID'd V1 that I could barely give away when I moved in 2024.

I have a Cafelat Robot and a stovetop steamer. I too am no fan of plastic but have a V1 Rancilio Silvia which I refurbished including new silicon tubing for the water intake. It has the plastic water tank but water isn't sitting in it that long. Hard to escape the fact you probably have plastic in your home plumbing. It's on the cold side so not such a big problem.