I am in the process of converting an automatic steam wand to traditional goose neck on my Simonelli Appia. In speaking with Simonelli and one of their distributors/repair techs, I could not get a straight answer on what is required to complete the job.
My thought is to simply change out the wand and not change anything with the inner plumbing, etc. However, if you're famliar enough with the Appia, you've probably noticed that the steam wand on the automatic is on the left side of the machine and the water tap is on the right. It's opposite on the manual machine. Also the inner plumbing is a little different between the two configurations.
I've asked if it's necessary to move the steam wand to the other side and change the plumbing to match factory delivered plumbing for the traditional wand. The answers I got were "You don't have to but I've never seen a traditional wand installed on the left side" and "You don't have to but you won't have the option of manual steam adjustment."
Why does Simonelli have slightly different configurations for the two steam wands? Am I going to screw the machine up by installing a traditional wand on the automatic plumbing? Does it really matter from a performance standpoint? These all seem like simple enough questions to me. Does anyone have simple answers?
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