Water coolers and their cleaning is not regulated by the FSA, though we feel it should be.
It is typically recommended that a bottled water cooler should be professionaly sanitised every three months and a bottleless water cooler every 6 months.
So why the different time periods?
Simple, a bottled water cooler does not enjoy a closed system in that it uses a spike to allow the water to flow typically down into a reservoir – this area represents a possible contamination area and results in the cooler requiring more frequent cleaning.
A bottleless water cooler uses a closed system, the water flows into the cooler from the back and there is no potential contamination area, hence the EIMBCA requirement for only 6 monthly cleaning.
We always recommend the use of a professional cooler company to do cooler cleaning. The increasingly litigious environment we live and work in means that having the cooler professionaly and properly serviced is a zero sum. Products to allow an individual or business to clean and sanitise their cooler themselves do exist and if you go this route we recommend you keep a log in your health and safety book as to dates, products used and time taken to undertake the process.
Safeguarding your water at work or water at home should not be left to chance and we frequently come ccross customers when marketing who have sat for years without ever cleaning their cooler – Yuk – a drinking water company would never have allowed this and the problem arises in that the employees move on, and some one new coming in may not know how or why they need to sanitise the water cooler.
Dont loose any sleep over the cooler cleaning however as given the quality of UK water its highly unlikely that any bacterial build up would ever be harmful.
