Tips to Keep Your Water Cooler Clean and Safe

 

With flu season around the corner and the severity of the Coronavirus pandemic growing daily, it’s more important than ever to keep your office, home and any other shared area clean and safe. 

To stop the spread of germs (and potential sickness) anywhere you can, a great place to start is with the communal water cooler.

With many people likely to come in contact with it every day, your cooler can accumulate germs fast - but it’s super easy to maintain hygiene with just a few steps. 

Here are a few tips for keeping your water cooler clean and safe this flu season.

Shut Down the Water Cooler

To begin with, unplug your water cooler and disregard any leftover water; it’s important to remove all water beforehand to ensure complete sanitisation. If it seems a little wasteful tipping it down the drain, you can repurpose it for things like watering the plants.

If a bottle top cooler, remove the top circular lid by turning counter-clockwise until the top unlatches. If plumbed in, unscrew the lid using the screws found at the rear of the cooler.

Unscrew the circular divider found within the reservoir and then clean by pouring two litres of water and 50ml of household vinegar in. Let it stand for approximately 5 minutes.

With the solution still inside the reservoir, use a non-abrasive sponge to scrub the reservoir and then drain the reservoir through the taps.|

Refill the reservoir with clean water and rinse. Repeat until the water runs clear and then replace the circular divider and lid, plug in the cooler and allow time for the water to cool.

Regular Wipe Down the Outside of the Cooler

It’s certainly worth wiping down the outside of your water cooler, or any communal spaces for that matter, with some antibacterial wipes. 

You’d be surprised by how many germs even the cleanest of people carry on their hands. So for precautionary measures, and to lessen the spread of germs and viruses, give the outside of your water cooler a good wipe down at least once a day.

Regularly Sanitise the Cooler

For best results, you should be sanitising your water cooler at least once every six months - perhaps more in times of widespread germs. In doing so, the sanitiser will clear out any bacteria or organic matter build-up in areas such as the tap mechanism.

By killing any residual bacteria build-up, your water will be tasting fresher than ever. 

Change Your Filters Regularly

Similarly to sanitisation practices, you should change your filters at the same time - at least every six months. Since it only takes a few minutes - you really don’t have an excuse not to.

Simply remove your current filter and replace it with a new filter. 

Precautionary Measures to Stop Spread of Flu

Whether your water cooler is in an office, gym or doctor’s surgery, there are plenty more measures you can take to do your bit in the reduction of flu spread.

Put some hand santiser by your water cooler and let people know to use it before handling the water cooler. 

If you’re finding that parts of your water filter are beginning to need replacing, we have all of your accessories and filters to replace them with.