Water Cooler Tank Cleaning

 Supplies needed to Drain and Clean the Water Tank:

  • Bucket 
  • Paper towels
  • 3% Hydrogen Peroxide (the kind you can get at the drug/grocery store)
  • clean gloves or thoroughly washed and sanitized hands
  • Q-tips (optional for cleaning inside faucet nozzles) 
  • Phillips head screwdriver to open the lid of the water cooler

Draining the Hot & Cold Water Tanks: 

  1. Turn off the water to the cooler.
  1. Unplug the cooler from power source.

*If your cooler is digital and will not allow you to dispense water without power, you can turn off the heating and cooling elements instead. The switches to turn on/off the hot and/or cold water are typically found on the back of the cooler. The heating element, if there is one, should always be off while the hot tank is empty.

  1. Drain as much water as you can out of the cold and hot faucets. 

CAUTION: FOR NEXT STEP (STEP 4) - THE WATER COMING OUT OF THE HOT TANK DRAIN IS EXTREMELY HOT AND WILL BURN !!!

You may want to wait a little while with the cooler unplugged or the heating element OFF to allow the remaining water in the hot tank to cool down before you remove the cap to the hot tank drain in the back of the cooler.

  1. Remove the cap or plug of the hot tank drain to drain the water into a bucket. Once it has fully drained, replace the cap or plug. 
  1. Open the top lid of the cooler.

Cleaning the Water Tank: 

    1. Wash hands well or put on clean, unused disposable gloves (you will be touching the inside of the tank for these next few steps).
    1. Open the cover of the cold tank - on many coolers you can pry off the lid with fingers or flathead screwdriver.
    1. Remove the ambient/cold water divider from inside the cold tank. Refer to your owner’s manual to find out how the divider should be removed. In most cases the divider is removed in one of two ways - On some cooler models such as Global Water Coolers, the divider can be pulled straight up. On other water coolers, such as the Wellsys and Hyundai models, the tank divider is removed by turning it counterclockwise like a screw.
    1. Pour about a cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide into the cold tank (you do not need to pour it down the hole to the hot water tank) and use paper towels drenched in the peroxide to clean the tank, divider, float, inner lid, etc. (all of the parts that your clean, filtered water comes in contact with). Allow the surfaces to remain wet with peroxide while you change the water filters. This gives the peroxide time to effectively sanitize the surfaces. (While you wait, go to filter changing and flushing instructions and then return to these instructions)…
    1. Drain hydrogen peroxide from the tank through the cold water spigot. If any peroxide remains in the bottom of the tank, just soak it up with a dry paper towel. If you poured any peroxide into the hot tank, drain the hot tank again. 
    1. Replace the tank divider and the tank lid to the cooler. 
    1. Turn on the water and allow the cooler to refill with fresh water. You can let some water run into a bucket while it’s filling back up just to rinse the taste of any residual peroxide out.
    1. Once cooler has refilled, you can plug in the cooler or turn on the heating and/or cooling elements and replace the lid to the water cooler.

     To clean inside the faucet nozzles, hydrogen peroxide soaked Q-tips work well. Rolled up pieces of paper towel also work. Ideally, faucets should be cleaned on a regular basis between filter changes.