Maintenance Tips for Water Coolers and Dispensers
Your water cooler is a well designed piece of equipment that
has few moving parts and is unlikely to go wrong and let you down. But, like
many appliances, it will need some maintenance and servicing to keep it in
optimum condition. After all, you bought it so that you could have the best
possible quality drinking water. Regular maintenance and servicing will ensure
that that clean, fresh, properly filtered water is what you always get.
Because water coolers are sturdy appliances with few moving
parts, there’s not a great deal that can go wrong with them. One of the most
important maintenance and servicing tasks is to ensure that the filter or
filters (depending on the model) are changed at regular intervals. Most
manufacturers recommend a filter change twice a year.
Whether you have a bottled water cooler or a plumbed in
model, to keep bacterial contamination at bay you will also need to clean the
tank and/or chiller reservoir and flush the system out with sanitising
fluid approximately three times a year.
A sanitisation kit will provide you with all the equipment
you need if you’ve chosen to do the maintenance of your water cooler yourself.
It’s not difficult and it won’t take you long to do it. Alternatively, a
maintenance contract with your supplier will take the burden off you. You won’t
even have to make a note of when a service and clean is due.
If you’re doing it yourself there are some basics to
remember when cleaning and maintaining your water cooler. Check out the
manufacturer’s instructions carefully and follow them to the letter. Short cuts
aren’t worth it if you want to maintain the quality of your water supply.
Remember to unplug your water cooler before draining and
servicing it. As we all know, water and
electricity don’t go together except under controlled conditions. If the
tank is empty at any time, switch it off.
If there is any ice in the chiller reservoir of your water
cooler, don’t chip it off. The best, and the easiest, thing to do is just to
let it melt. It shouldn’t take too long.
Keep an eye on dust. If your water cooler is in a dusty
environment, you shouldn’t have a problem with it contaminating the interior,
but it’s obviously a good idea to keep the external cabinet clean. Avoid
abrasive detergents. Keep an eye on the tap and the drip tray, which can also
be simply cleaned, using dishwashing liquid and a soft cloth. Proprietary
products to deal with limescale can be used as required.
Maintaining your water cooler isn’t that much more
complicated than maintaining your fridge. Simply servicing it regularly and
keeping it dust free will make sure that your water cooler continues to serve
your hydration needs for years to come.
How to Clean Your
Water Cooler
If you’ve installed a water cooler in your office or home,
or are thinking about it, then the question of cleaning and maintenance is
something you’ll need to consider. If you want pure, clean water, you have to
make sure that its coming from a clean machine. Fortunately, cleaning and
maintenance of water coolers isn’t complicated. Water cooler
servicing kits are readily available.
When you acquire your water cooler you will have two options. If you’ve rented a water cooler then it will typically include some kind of maintenance and service contract. That lets you off the hook when it comes to keeping your cooler in tip-top running order. Your contractor will deal with the cleaning for you, on a regular basis.
Your other option is to undertaking the cleaning of your
water cooler yourself. It’s a straightforward process that requires little
technical know-how – just some common sense. Your water cooler will come with a
manual and instructions on any specific features peculiar to your model of
machine.
There are some differences between cleaning bottle-fed and
plumbed in water coolers, and those that both heat and chill water, but the
basic process is the same. In either kind of water cooler, you will need to
clean or occasionally replace the filter, no matter what type of filter it is
fitted with. If your cooler has a filtration system that uses several filters
(some have two or three), then you will need to attend to all of them at
regular intervals – twice a year is about standard for filter replacement.
Sanitising to remove any bacterial presence is best down about three times a
year.
Luckily it’s no sweat! They are designed for easy servicing
and cleaning and service packs will contain all the kit you need. Apart from
replacing the filters the other key tasks are flushing the system out with
sanitising fluid, and giving it a bit of a brush where any debris has
accumulated. If there is a drip tray you will need to give that a regular wipe,
along with running a wet cloth over the outside. You may need to use lime de-scaler
if you have a lime scale problem with the water in your area.
Before you start, there are some basic but important things
to remember! First of all, wash your hands
with anti-bacterial soap, or use a clean pair of latex gloves. Obviously you
don’t want to introduce any extras into your water.
Second, make sure you’ve unplugged and switched the water
off, if you have a mains-fed (plumbed in) water cooler. It sounds obvious, but
it’s worth making a note of this vital step in the proceedings! Then make sure
that you’ve emptied out any water remaining in the cooler tank.
Then, give the tank and baffle plate a good but
gentle scrub with a nylon brush. Then add sanitising fluid. The amount you need
to use will vary depending on the tank size and the make and model of your
cooler. Check the manufacturer’s instructions. Switch the water back on to
ensure that the sanitising fluid penetrates throughout the system. After about
five minutes (for typical brands of sanitising liquid) you can flush the system
through with clean water. You’ll need to do this about three times.
You’re then ready to reassemble your cooler, fill the tank from
the mains or replace the water bottle, as applicable. The whole process
shouldn’t take you too long, and very soon you’ll be up and running, enjoying your
refreshing, clean, filtered water once again.
If you are unsure then get a professional to do it for you, since they do it daily its probably a better use of your time and money!
Water Cooler sanitisation is like most cleaning jobs a chore. There are few cleaning jobs that are fun to do. To be a little stereotypical, perhaps a man enjoys polishing his car or motor bike and some women (and men) like to keep their homes spotless with a cleaning regime that some would describe as an obsessive compulsive disorder. For the majority of people cleaning is a chore and cleaning the exterior or interior of a water cooler would fall into the same category. Like other cleaning jobs failure to keep on top of cleaning your water cooler, interior and exterior, could lead to unpleasant consequences. The main difference between not cleaning your floor and not cleaning the interior of your water cooler is that you generally do not eat or drink of the floor.
Despite drinking waters clear and fresh appearance it is perfectly legal and usual to have some low levels of contamination when the water is dispensed from your tap. Even bottled water which many believe to be better quality than tap water has allowable levels of particles that in large quantities could cause problems. Tap water is in fact more stringently tested to higher standards than some bottled water, plus bottled water is only tested in the bottling plant once it is in the bottle in storage any living organisms could multiply. Similarly when tap water is stored in a water cooler tank over time it is possible for any micro organisms present to multiply. This is the reason why its important to periodically sanitise the interior of a water cooler and change the filter. As the water stored is cold tank hence ”water cooler” any micro organisms that are present will reproduce slowly which is why its generally only necessary to sanitise a cooler every three or six months.
UK Aqua is able to provide all the components required for the sanitisation of your water cooler from gloves to the nylon bristled brushes. Brushes are required to scour the inside of the tank to ensure any organisms that have built up as bio-film are loosened allowing the sanitisation fluid to surround and eliminate them. You can buy the items individually if required or as a complete water cooler service kit that contains pretty much all you need to sanitise a tank fed cooler and a replacement filter. We also include instructions on how to undertake the job if you want to do it yourself or pass it to your maintenance personnel.
An alternative to doing the water cooler servicing yourself, is to call us and allow us to take care of it. As we do it all day every day we can usually conduct the job more quickly which probably works out lower cost than DIY by the time you have factored in the time and parts costs. It also allows you to focus on your core business, stopping anyone having to do the cleaning chore!
Maintenance Tips for Water Coolers and Dispensers
