Franke Repair · Bay Area

We are Franke-certified. Andrew passed Franke Coffee Systems’ Technical Certification Training on the A-Line fully and semi-automatic machines, and the Technical Certification Exam for the McDonald’s IHT units, both in June 2026 through Franke’s North America center in Smyrna, Tennessee. Both certificates are on this page. The course is exactly the troubleshooting that matters on these machines: the brewer and coffee flow, the milk system, the electrical side, and the water and steam circuits. See the A-Line certificate and the McDonald’s IHT certificate.

Franke Coffee Systems out of Switzerland builds the high-volume super-automatics you find behind office break rooms, quick-service counters, and convenience stores. The A300, A400, A600, A800, A1000, SB1200, and Mytico run all day, and that workload finds the weak points fast. We collect these across the Bay Area on pickup routes from San Ramon, and the faults fall into a few familiar buckets.

The brewer unit takes the most abuse. Pucks stop ejecting clean, the brew chamber binds, or extraction goes weak and watery because the group is fouled or a seal has failed. Grinders are next. Worn burrs throw off dose and grind consistency, and a machine that used to pull a tight shot starts running fast and sour. We pull the brewer, clean or rebuild it, and swap burrs when they’re past spec rather than chasing the symptom with adjustments that won’t hold.

The FoamMaster milk system is its own world. Valves stick, lines clog with dried milk and protein, and texture goes flat or the machine refuses to dispense steamed milk at all. Daily cleaning cycles help, but seals and valves still wear. We strip the milk path, replace the bad valves and lines, and verify foam quality before the machine leaves the bench.

Then there’s the water side. Flow meters drift and throw volume errors, pumps lose pressure, and boilers and heaters scale up and stop holding temperature. Control boards and touchscreens fail too, sometimes from heat, sometimes from a power event. We diagnose the board against the rest of the machine instead of guessing, because a “dead screen” is often a connector or a supply fault upstream.

Repair and maintenance

These machines plumb into a water line, so scale and water quality drive most of what breaks. A descaling and water-filtration schedule is the cheapest insurance you can buy. We descale the boiler and heater, replace gaskets and seals before they leak, service the brew group, and document what the water path tells us. Filtration selection and installation stay with a water-treatment provider working from Franke’s requirements.

Staying ahead of scale costs a fraction of a breakdown. A descale on schedule is planned bench work. A boiler that’s already crusted over and dropped temperature mid-rush means a shutdown, a larger repair, and lost sales while it is down. For a busy operator, the math isn’t close.

We pick Franke equipment up, diagnose it on the bench, and return it after approved work. The deposit covers those steps and is separate from the repair; its amount is confirmed at scheduling. Standard bench time is $150 per hour. You get a written quote before we continue. Licensed California contractor, CSLB #1136642.

Diagnostics can take up to a week; most repairs run 3–4 weeks. That is exactly why we recommend preventive maintenance. Repair parts are covered for 6 months and consumables for 90 days. Coffee pickup covers our 56 Bay Area cities plus San Francisco. For coffee-only intake, visit our dedicated coffee division, or call Adrium.