The Water Drop™: Episode 15

Re-Opening Your Drinking Fountain

If you have drinking fountains that have been infrequently used for a period of time, then you should go through a protocol in order to reopen those drinking fountains. You should do three things. One, you should clean and sanitize the drinking fountain and the bubbler heads. Two, flush those units out for 15 to 30 minutes and three, make sure you do some type of test: testing for like Legionella, E. Coli, and Coliforms. Reopening a drinking fountain after a period of infrequent use without doing a procedure to reopen that may cause harm to an individual by making them very sick.

Because there's been bacteria sitting in that drinking fountain for however long it's not been used, and if it hasn't been flushed, you're exposing that person to water that has just been sitting there stagnant. Stagnant water produces a risk because disinfection has been lost, the water has potentially warmed up and allowed for growth of bacteria within that water that's immediately exposed to an individual. So, you want to make sure that you do put a protocol in place to reopen those drinking fountains.

Avoid the risk of bacteria in your water systems!