“Our philosophy at Sprocket has always been about ways to reuse and repurpose things,” Ciavarella says.

This can be seen in the way the team at Sprocket has designed, patented and manufactured an environmentally-friendly coffee roaster that runs on biofuels and spent coffee grounds.

Ciavarella also salvages and restores commercial vintage coffee machines.

“If something is broken, we fix it, as opposed to replacing it with the newest shiniest thing on the block,’ he says.   

Ciavarella  has been restoring vintage espresso machines for the past five years, a passion that taps into his desire to fix and modify.

“It comes from growing up on a grape and citrus farm in regional NSW, where we needed to be resourceful, not to mention I have always enjoyed older-style espresso machines.”

Ciavarella found that restoring vintage machines was a cost effective way of supplying equipment to his customers.

“Our customers therefore receive a very unique and custom machine that is as reliable as a brand new machine,” he says.

He also restores smaller commercial machines for home baristas and says they are a much better bet for people wanting to invest in a good coffee machine.

“Commercial machines are built to last forever and can always be fixed,” he explains.

“Modern home machines, like many things these days, are designed only to last a short period of time, generally two years, before they break and are not viable to fix.”

Another major benefit of commercial machines is that they are far more heat stable, meaning you will make a better coffee.

“With a machine that is built for the commercial environment, far more focus is applied to its operation and the quality of product it produces,” Ciavarella says.

“Machines built for the home user, on the other hand, greater focus is applied to the cost of manufacturing each unit, therefore sacrificing the quality of the espresso by using lower-cost materials.”

Temperature stability on a commercial machine is achieved simply by the amount of brass used to make the group head - the more brass, the more heat stable - allowing for the espresso to be extracted at a constant temperature for the whole extraction. As brass is expensive, manufacturers of home machines tend to use as little as possible, opting for plastic or very lightly-built brew heads that don’t always maintain a constant extraction temperature.

Ciavarella  suggests that a quality second-hand commercial coffee machine can be sourced on websites such as Gumtree or Ebay between around $500 to $1200. Ross can generally restore the machine to its former glory for around $400 to $500 in the space of two to three weeks.

Even among commercial coffee machines quality can vary, so Ciavarella suggests some solid online research or a conversation with an expert before buying one.

“Once restored, your machine will be good to go for another 20 or 30 years,” Ciavarella  explains.