A water cooler is a familiar sight for many people in homes, schools, and offices all over London and the southeast. Giving everyone cool, crisp, and filtered water at the push of a button or pull of the tap, it’s often the drinking water of choice, coming up trumps for purity and great taste in these notoriously hard water areas. Daily water cooler users know how good they are, but how does a water cooler work?

Mains-fed or bottled water coolers

Two types of water cooler are commonly seen in schools, hospitals, offices, and public buildings all over London – bottled water coolers and mains-fed water coolers. While both Thirsty Work models deliver the purest chilled or ambient water on demand, there are a few differences between them and how they work.

Bottled water coolers

Our bottled water coolers use an 18.9 or 13-litre bottle of pure, naturally filtered water, which is placed onto a special spiked connector on top of the cooler itself. When the bottle is in position, its safety seal is pierced, allowing the water to flow into the cooler’s internal reservoir, featuring a valve that prevents it from overfilling and flooding.

Once the reservoir is full, the water can be drawn directly from the cooler using the tap for ambient temperature water. If chilled water is required, the water is rapidly cooled using a hydrocarbon refrigerant gas. This clean and green gas has zero ozone depletion potential and is a much more eco-friendly way to deliver ice-cold water directly from the second tap.

As the water in the reservoir is dispensed, the internal valve detects when the water dips below a certain level and automatically refills from the bottle. When both the water bottle and reservoir are drained, the bottle is replaced, and the whole process starts again.

Mains-fed water coolers

A mains-fed model works differently from the bottled model, but only slightly. Rather than using a replaceable water bottle, a mains-fed cooler is connected directly to your mains water supply – hence its name. The key is using an advanced water filtration system that cleanses and purifies the mains water to a far higher standard than if it comes directly from your tap.

This filtration significantly improves your mains water’s taste, which is why these water coolers are so popular in hard water areas like London and the southeast. It filters out everything that contributes to your water’s taste and smell, including contaminants, sediments, and chlorine – even traces of lead and plastic.

And the water doesn’t sit in an internal reservoir. Each time the ambient or chilled tap is pulled to dispense water, it works the same way as a regular tap, but the water is constantly filtered and refreshed. The main similarity between the coolers is how the water is cooled using the same hydrocarbon refrigerant gas.

How does a water cooler work? Just ask Thirsty Work

A bottled water cooler and mains fed water cooler can be an ideal replacement for any home or business concerned about the quality of their mains tap water – and across the southeast, that’s a lot. But our Thirsty Work engineers can set up your bottled water cooler and fully install your mains-fed water cooler so you can taste the difference immediately.

Contact our customer service team today for more information on how a water dispenser works, our installations, deliveries, and service and maintenance packages. Call 020 3740 9480 or 020 3740 9481 or email hello@thirstywork.com to get your free quote and even get started with your no-obligation, 10-day free trial to taste for yourself.