INDEPENDENT NEWS

Time to Give Tanks a Spring Clean

Published: Wed 11 Oct 2017 10:47 AM
Warm Weather Bugs Mean It’s More Important to Give Tanks a Spring Clean than Your House Say National Water Experts
According to the owners of Safe H2O, a revolutionary national tank cleaning and water purification business, Kiwis should be more concerned about giving their water tanks a spring clean than their house.
Daylight Savings is the traditional time to organise and declutter the home. However, water tanks often get neglected. As the weather gets warmer, this can result in the proliferation of water borne bugs such as E.coli, giardia and norovirus, leaving rural New Zealand households vulnerable to illness in spring and summer.
“As the weather warms so does the temperature of tank water. As the water temperature increases, it creates a more desirable breeding ground for bacteria,” explains Tracey Meads, co-director of Safe H2O. “Water tanks should be checked annually, but it is more important to do it before summer. A fuller tank means the water and the contaminants in it are less concentrated. Once summer hits and water levels drop, the concentration of bacteria increases pretty rapidly.”
Tracey says that Kiwis can be nonchalant about tank cleaning. One of her aims this year is to get Kiwis thinking more carefully about the health and quality of the water that they’re using.
“There are so many misconceptions out there. For example, many people think that because they have a filter, the tank doesn’t need cleaning. However, they don’t realise that sediment actually stops the filter working effectively, meaning whatever is in your tank, such as pesticides, nitrates, E.coli, giardia and norovirus, will come straight out of your tap. These bugs can make you sick even if you’re not drinking the water – showering and washing your hands in it can also make you feel incredibly ill.”
Tracey has come across a number of tank horror stories since she and husband Chad Meads founded the business in 2016.
“We have cleaned and filtered tanks recently where the householders - including young kids - had been sick for a long time. We’ve discovered giardia and e-coli in their tanks, which would explain why they have been feeling so under the weather,” says Tracey.
“Interestingly, some of these cases have been farmers that have been on tank water all their lives and have never had issues before. It hadn’t even registered with them that they might be feeling ill because of the tank water until a friend suggested it. It just goes to show that anyone can be affected. Sometimes, getting a bit older and the immune system becoming less effective over time means that people are suddenly more vulnerable to the bugs in their water.”
Safe H2O is a fast-growing national brand with locations in the Waikato, Whanganui and the Lower North Island. Tracey and Chad established Safe H2O as they saw an opportunity to bring a time and cost effective tank cleaning and water purification system right to peoples’ doorsteps.
Safe H2O uses a ground-breaking mobile nano-filtration unit, which removes all kinds of nasties from the water, including E-coli, giardia and norovirus. The mobile units process up to 20,000 litres of water per hour and filter to 0.001 micron. Unlike other tank cleaning processes, it is not necessary to empty the tank, which saves customers time and money. Safe H2O removes all sediment quickly and efficiently without climbing into the tank or using abrasive cleaning techniques. The unit retains and purifies the existing water removing >99.9% of pathogens from the water filtered.
For more information on Safe H2O, visit safeh2o.co.nz.
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