Office water coolers

katiep_2

In our office we're looking at ways to improve our environmental performance. I was on the Sustain website the other day and saw a figure that said that for every £1000 spent on bottled water, the same amount from the tap would cost 1p!!! :eek:

People in my office however are fussy so and so's and won't drink the water from the tap coz it's cloudy :rolleyes: so I'm looking into those water cooler thingies that are plumbed straight into the main.

Does anyone know what I'm going on about, where I can find out more, and any indication of the cost?

TIA!

moonrakerz

If your tap water is cloudy, just let it stand for a minute, it will clear. It's just gas in the water, quite harmless.

I really don't understand what people have against tap water. There are all sorts of legal standards that tap water has to meet, none of these apply to bottled water. This is before Coke and Perrier start adding dangerous chemicals to perfectly good water in their bottling plants.

PS: Tap water costs about 0.04p per glass - that doesn't include the sewerage charge for when you dispose of it !

katiep_2

moonrakerz wrote: »

If your tap water is cloudy, just let it stand for a minute, it will clear. It's just gas in the water, quite harmless.

I really don't understand what people have against tap water. There are all sorts of legal standards that tap water has to meet, none of these apply to bottled water. This is before Coke and Perrier start adding dangerous chemicals to perfectly good water in their bottling plants.

PS: Tap water costs about 0.04p per glass - that doesn't include the sewerage charge for when you dispose of it !

I know that, and drink it all the time, but try convincing this lot :rolleyes:

lindens

katiep wrote: »

In our office we're looking at ways to improve our environmental performance. I was on the Sustain website the other day and saw a figure that said that for every £1000 spent on bottled water, the same amount from the tap would cost 1p!!! :eek:

People in my office however are fussy so and so's and won't drink the water from the tap coz it's cloudy :rolleyes: so I'm looking into those water cooler thingies that are plumbed straight into the main.

Does anyone know what I'm going on about, where I can find out more, and any indication of the cost?

TIA!

We've got those at our offices. Have PM'd you the details (in case its against the rules to put them on here)

nzmegs

We have mains water coolers too. They are good but even cheaper would be to buy a couple of water filter jugs and keep them in the fridge. If people can commit to refilling them when they drink the last bit then they work really well. To be honest though i find that tap water kept in a bottle in the fridge soon loses the cloudiness and funny taste.

moonrakerz

katiep wrote: »

I know that, and drink it all the time, but try convincing this lot :rolleyes:

Put it in Perrier bottles, they'll think it is lovely !

Savvy_Sue

We have a purefilter - useful as our upstairs water supply wasn't coming off the mains but via a tank!

walmslei

Plumbed in coolers are definitely the way to go - we supply those ourselves, and basically with a -good- filter system you can achieve an ouput quality of water which vastly exceeds anything you'd ever get from a bottle!

One thing you sometimes find is some companies will use inline cartridges which are desgined for the vending markets. These are fine - they certainly remove chlorine, and polish the taste. Alternatively you can look at a installing a dedicated filter system - certainly no more effort and most water filtration companies (as opposed to cooler companies) will go this route anyway. As well as removing chlorine you'd remove heavy metals, chlorine compounds (THMS), and you've the options of looking to remove limescale (not typically an issue in cool water), fluoride, nitrates.

Many bottled water companies are -not- supplying mineral water, and many can be very coy about the true source of the water. The vast majority are simply producing filtered or RO water through the tap, which is perfectly legal (they are providing the service of filtration). RO water can be very bland (it is literally tasteless), whereas a good filtered water is often the more desirable option (removing the nasties and leaving a bit of free mineral content behind basically).

The bottled water market is a great market to be in - cooler prices have dropped with import models flooding the market, meaning the 'low deposit' and 'high running cost' model has become common place. A good plumbed in cooler should be available sub £350, but your running costs even for one with a good filter system would be less than £40 a year - peanuts really.

Don't be fooled into cleaning and sanitisation costs either. Yes ALL coolers ought to be cleaned and looked after, but in truth the products to do this are available in most supermarkets (anti-bacterial cleaners, milton and those sort of products), and it is certainly something which can be done in-house.