How do I sterilise my new system?

When we’re dealing with UV it’s important to recognise that it is a ‘point of use’ technology. If you put in a UV unit and you have a mouldy tap, then you’re still going to have bugs and bacteria in the water coming out of that tap. With that in mind I’m going to explain how to sanitise your existing pipework so that the UV unit can give the best results possible. Here we go:

Things you’ll need before we start – The kit to take your filter housing off, You UV unit to be installed (but turned off), Bleach or Milton’s (I’ll explain later), around an hour of time.

1. Isolate your water supply. We’re taking the filter bowl off soon and you don’t want it pouring water all over you.
2. Take the filter bowl off and pour a cup of bleach or Milton’s in. Put the filter bowl back on.
3. Turn your water back on.
4. Open the tap for the pipework you’re treating.
5. Once the sanitiser has worked through the pipe. Turn the tap off and leave for 20-30 mins.
6. Repeat steps 2-4 for every outlet that the UV unit will be treating. This could be a tap, shower or toilet.
7. Switch the UV unit on.
8. Open the taps again to let all of the bleach or Milton’s out of the supply.

The recommendation of bleach or Milton’s will vary from company to company. We have no preference so will let you choose yourself. Milton’s is safe to consume but very difficult to smell. That’s the only way you will be able to tell when it has worked it’s way through your pipework. Bleach is easy to smell but not great to drink. If using bleach, you’ll turn your tap on until you can smell bleach. Turn it off and leave it for 30 mins. Then turn the tap back on and leave it running until you cant smell bleach any more. It’s the same process with Milton’s but involves guessing instead of smelling.

I hope that helps.