How to Effectively Clean Home Water Coolers

Home water coolers are a great way to conveniently get clean, fresh drinking water in your home or office. For places that don’t have drinking water available such as older farms, they are a lifesaver. Using home water coolers in this case is much easier than refilling gallon jugs.

Home water coolers are relatively low cost and the bottles are very reasonable to refill, some areas even have water delivery services that will take care of the entire refill process for you. One such service is the well-known Culligan water store.

The refillable water bottles that are used with home water coolers are generally a 5-gallon size, so they last a moderately long time if your family or organization isn’t too large. You may want to consider buying an extra bottle and store it full as a quick backup for when the other runs out of water. This way, you will always have water available without having to run out and get it refilled before being able to use your home water coolers again.

Many people are aware of the benefits of home water coolers and use them at home or at work, but knowing how to properly clean them is another story all together. Without proper upkeep, the water coolers can get water scales built up inside the unit. You wouldn’t want any of that gunk to come out in your drinking water, so it is best to keep your unit clean. If one waits too long before cleaning home water coolers, they can become too dirty and will have to be replaced.

It has been recommended by various water cooler associations that home water coolers should be cleaned at least four times per year. Here’s how to properly clean home water coolers to prolong their usage time and keep fresh, clean water coming out.

The first thing you should do is gather up the supplies you will need to complete this task. Make sure you have rubber gloves, paper towels, dish soap, a 2-gallon container, unscented bleach and a small cork on hand. If your home water cooler does not have a hot & cold water option, you will not need the small cork.

1. Unplug the unit from the electrical outlet.
2. Wipe down the entire exterior of the home water coolers unit with hot soapy water and then dry it off using the paper towels you have on hand.
3. Take the empty water bottle out of the unit and drain all the remaining water out using the cold-water dispenser.
4. Take the water guard off of the top and remove the baffle from just inside the unit, under the water guard, and clean them with hot soapy water as well.
5. Optional: If you have a hot water dispenser on your unit, plug the hot water tank hole off with the cork. This is located at the bottom of the reservoir.
6. Mix a gallon of water with one teaspoon of the unscented bleach and wash the interior of the unit with it and your paper towels. Pour the rest of the solution into the cooler and let it sit for 4 to 5 minutes and then drain it out of the cold-water dispenser.
7. Fill the home water coolers reservoir with fresh, clean water and drain it out through the cold-water dispenser as well. You should repeat this step 3 times in order to insure that all the bleach has been completely rinsed out.
8. Optional: Remove the plug from the hot water tank hole if you inserted it in step 5.
9. Reassemble the baffle and water guard and then place a bottle of water on the home water coolers top again.
10. Run about 2 cups of water through each of your dispensers and do a taste test. You should not taste any of the bleach at this point. If you do continue running the bottled water through the dispensers until the water tastes normal.
11. Plug the home water coolers plug-in back in to the outlet.

If you would rather purchase an FDA approved cleaning kit for home water coolers, they are available and most include enough supplies for an entire year of cleaning.