How To Clean A Bottled Water Cooler

What You Need to Get Started

Before you start, you’ll need the following:

1. Clean rubber gloves
2. Lint-free towel or lint-free paper towels
3. Clean container or bucket that can hold a gallon or two of water
4. Unscented household bleach (just a tiny bit!)
5. A small cork or plug if you have a hot and cold cooler. This is a CRITICAL piece that you need to clean your hot/cold cooler. For a room temperature and cold cooler, a cork or plug is not needed.

How To Prepare the Cleaning Solution

Prepare a sanitizing solution consisting of:

• One gallon of clean water
• One teaspoon of unscented bleach. Do not use any more than that. Make sure to use regular unscented Clorox.

How To Clean Your Water Cooler in 10 Easy Steps

1. To begin cleaning your water cooler, first disconnect the water cooler power cord from the outlet.
2. Remove the bottle from your cooler. It’s best to do this when the bottle is empty. Then, drain the reservoir through the cold water (blue) faucet into a bucket. If there’s ice in the reservoir, allow it to melt and then drain. You can add hot water to speed up this process.
3. Remove the water guard or spill-free top from your cooler. Some tops are a pressure fit and others require a twisting motion. Once the top is off, remove the baffle inside the reservoir. This is a white plastic or stainless steel plate/tube assembly that lifts straight out. If your cooler is missing the baffle, don’t worry! This can vary depending on cooler model. Once the baffle is removed, you’ll see two holes in the bottom of the reservoir leading to the faucets.
   
   *Important note for hot/cold water coolers:  If you have a hot/cold water cooler, the hole in the center is the hot water hole.  That’s the one you need to plug with a cork or plug. If you don’t plug it, chlorine or sanitizer will get into your hot tank and it will be very hard to get that chlorine taste out of your hot tank. The hot water tank already sanitizes itself due to the very hot water, so cleaning is not necessary.

    

4. Dip a clean, lint-free towel into the cleaning solution and wring out the excess liquid. Thoroughly clean all of interior surfaces of the reservoir. Make sure that hot tank is plugged!
5. Give the interior of the reservoir a good wipedown and then fill it with the chlorine solution. Let that sanitizing solution stay in the cooler for about 5 minutes.
6. Sanitize the spill-free top and baffle by wiping them down with the towel saturated with the sanitizing solution. You don’t need to soak them; just wipe them. Be careful not to get the air filter wet. Allow this to sit for at least 3 minutes and then rinse profusely with clean bottled water.
7. Now let’s get rid of the sanitizing solution. Fill the reservoir full (all the way to the top) with fresh bottled water and completely drain that water through the cold faucet. Repeat this step two to three more times, just to make sure all of the chlorine bleach is gone.
8. Remove the hot tank cork (if you put one in), and replace the baffle and spill-free top assembly by pressing them firmly into place. Place a bottle on the cooler and drain two cups of water from each faucet (hot, room temp, and cold). You shouldn’t have any chlorine taste. If you do, keep draining more water until the taste disappears.
9. Plug the cooler back in. It’ll take 30 minutes of so before the water is hot and/or cold.
10. Congratulations, you’ve just cleaned and sanitized your bottled water cooler!