Water Cooler Use and Maintenance

General Information - Water coolers (all makes and models) have the potential to become internally dirty, leading to an unsanitary (and in some cases ) unsafe condition.  Although they are a food service appliance, they are usually taken for granted.  So long as they are kept clean on the outside, and look pretty, most people don’t think about what is going on on the inside!  So here is some information that might explain things to you.

Bacteria can affect the taste of water -  Any surface that is constantly wet will, in time, develop a surface coating of slimy bacteria.  In nature, there are thousands of kinds of bacteria.  Many of these can, and will affect the taste of water.

Kinds of bacteria - Basically, there are two kinds of bacteria - aerobic and anaerobic.  Aerobic bacteria thrive only in the presence of oxygen (air).  Aerobic bacteria tend to be harmless and are often beneficial, if not actually essential to the promotion of life.  Anaerobic bacteria, live only in water, or on continually wet surfaces.  They can be both beneficial and essential (yogurt and cheese cultures are examples), or deadly (such as coliform and typhoid).  Both beneficial and disease producing anaerobic bacteria can thrive by the billions, on the same surface, at the same time.

Bioslime - is a term describing a slimy (often greenish) film of bacteria that accumulates on constantly wet surfaces.  It will be found on the insides of ALL municipal water mains, on the insides of storage tanks, and in your water cooler.  It doesn’t make any difference how pure the water is, billions of bacteria are in the air all around us; and in time they will attach to any and all wet surfaces.

Mold and Mildew - are also in the air all around us.  However, unlike anaerobic bacteria, they must have both food and oxygen in order to survive.  They will not live where there is not an adequate supply of food and air.  If you take the last bottle off your cooler, leaving it open to the air, you are inviting mold.  The same will happen if you leave open (empty) bottles outside, or in a damp location.

Your cooler gets dirty on the inside - where you can’t see it!  It gets that nice slimy film of bioslime in the hot and cold water reservoirs, in all the connecting tubing, and in the dispensing valves.  If this is not cleaned out on a regular basis, eventually it can become a health hazard.

How to clean without noxious chemicals - Ozone, citrus cleaners, baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and certain botanical extracts, are natural products that are often employed in cleaning food contact surfaces.  If you use a citrus or botanical product, you must make sure that it has been approved for use on food contact surfaces.  The use of any of the above methods (except baking soda) by other than trained professionals would require extensive instructions.  Please call us at (508) 696-3066 for further information.

Common practices that cause trouble - taking the last bottle off and leaving a cooler uncovered, so that bugs and dirt can fall in, pulling the covers off bottles unnecessarily, and then leaving empty bottles where dirt, bugs and mold can get in, failure to wipe the necks and tops of bottles before putting  new bottles on the cooler, failure to remove the batch code sticker and safety seal when putting a bottle on, storing bottles outside or in dirty locations, getting paint, chemicals or other substances in or on our bottles, and using our bottles for purposes not food related.

Home

Continue