How to Clean and Sanitize
a Water Cooler

How to Clean and Sanitize a Clover or Oasis Bottled/Bottleless Water Cooler
Following are the easy steps to follow to make sure your Clover or Oasis StandUp Bottled Bottleless Water Cooler is clean and ready for you to enjoy healthy great tasting bottled water at home or at the office. Make sure you follow the necessary precautions for a Hot & Cold Cooler.

Tools
About thirty minutes of time
Clean rubber gloves
Clean container that can hold a gallon or more
Lint-free towel or paper towels
Unscented household bleach (just a tiny bit!)
A small cork or plug if you have a hot & cold cooler

Cleaning your water cooler

  1. Disconnect power cord from outlet.
  2. Bottled:  Remove the bottle from your cooler (it’s nice if you time this to be when your bottle is empty).
  3. Bottleless:   Remove top of cooler and inner float assemby to expose the cold tank below.
  4. Drain reservoir through the cold water (light blue) faucet and the hot water (red if you have a hot and cold water cooler) faucet into a bucket and throw that away. If there is ice in the reservoir, allow to melt and then drain. You can add hot water to speed up the melting. If you have a hot & cold water cooler, then drain the hot tank via the plug on back of water cooler.
  5. Clean cooler exterior & faucets with hot water and mild soap. Dry with paper towels.
  6. Remove the water guard or spill-free top from your water cooler. Remove the baffle inside the reservoir as well. Both should just pull right out, depending upon the model cooler you have. Also remove (by unscrewing) the spigots on the front of the water cooler. If you have a removable reservoir water cooler then you can also take that out at this time.
  7. Wash these with mild dish soap and water (the Crystal Mountain Water Coolers parts can be placed in the dish washer for very thorough cleaning). Rinse with clean water and set aside. If you removed the reservoir then reinstall that first. Screw the faucets back on to the front of the water cooler.

Cleaning your water cooler reservoir
(Only if you do not have a removable reservoir water cooler)

  1. If yours is a hot & cold water cooler, then you must plug the hot tank off. You can do this with a small cork or plug. It must be tight and fit right in the center hole in the bottom of the water cooler’s reservoir. This prevents the sanitizer from getting into your hot tank — if bleach gets into the hot tank, your hot water will taste like chlorine for quite a while. The hot tank sanitizes itself since it’s very hot, however if you have hard water then the hot tank can get so clogged with mineral deposits that it can need to be cleaned also. Here are our instructions on how to clean a hot water tank.
  2. Prepare the sanitizing solution by mixing one gallon of clean water and one teaspoon of unscented bleach. Believe it or not, you do not need anymore than that! Put on your clean rubber gloves and dip a clean, lint-free towel into the solution and wring out the excess liquid. Towel down clean all of interior surfaces of the reservoir thoroughly. Let that chlorine solution stay in the cooler for about 5 minutes.
  3. Sanitize spill-free top and baffle by wiping them down with the towel filled with the sanitizing solution. You don’t need to soak them, just wipe them. Don’t get the little air filter wet!! Allow to sit for at least 3 minutes and then rinse thoroughly with clean bottled water, and set aside.
  4. Fill reservoir full of fresh bottled water and completely drain that water through the cold faucet. Repeat twice. That makes three (3) times total, and uses about three (3) gallons of bottled water.
  5. Put on a clean pair of rubber gloves and take out the hot tank cork (if you put one in), replace the baffle and spill-free top assembly by pressing them firmly back into place. Place a bottle on the water 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 chlorine taste disappears.
  6. Plug the cooler back in. It might take thirty minutes or so before the water is hot and/or cold again.

If you have any questions about any of the above, feel free to give us a call at 1-800-390-6132.