Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: how do you clean your soda towers nightly?

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Posted by Robert LaValley (Member # 4319) on 04-22-2008, 07:18 PM:

I have practiced pouring bleach and hot water down the drains for the soda towers to cut down the fruit flys (nats) that have a tendency to form after awhile.
However another employee has told me that at a Regal she worked at they told her not to do that becuase it damages the pipes.
We also do the usual of taking apart the nozzels and soaking them in the cleaning solution and whiping everything down etc..etc...

I was curious what other people do to clean their soda towers nightly.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-22-2008, 08:37 PM:

We pour a bleach/water mix (just a little bleach) down the drains, plus the usual removal and soaking of the nozzles. We use Proctor's nozzle cleaner. We don't do it nightly -- we do it weekly. Other days, the machine gets a good wipedown on the outside.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 04-22-2008, 08:47 PM:

The bleach will also help reduce any algae growth in the drains. My old theater had been getting small drainage problems to find that there was lots of cold-water algae in it. Pulling out what we could got rid of the problem temporarily and doing our bi-weekly switching out of the bleach buckets involved dumping them down there. And AFAIK they had no problems like that when I moved.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 04-22-2008, 09:43 PM:

flies
gnats
a while
because
nozzles
wiping

[evil]

Bleach will eat away at rubber, so it is not recommended to pour it down the fountain drain (which usually drains through a rubber hose to the drain) or to soak the nozzles in it (rubber O-rings).

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 04-22-2008, 11:29 PM:

We remove our nozzles once a week (Sunday nights) and wash them with a long bristle toothbrush, dishsoap, and water. They are then soaked over night in Efferdent and rinsed before placed back on the next day.

For the drains, we just pour hot water down the fountain drain to flush out syrup residue nightly. At least once a month I'll pour drain cleaner down them to control algae build-up. I also do this to the ice bin drains. Haven't had a drain clog in several years.

Posted by Rachel Craven (Member # 1016) on 04-23-2008, 12:24 AM:

We always did the bleach/water solution to pour down the drain and cut down on algae and eliminate fruit flies. I think the cost of the new rubber hose is minimal compared to the troubles it could cause from not cleaning it correctly, plus it will take a LONG time before the solution will actually wear it down enough to need to replace it (as long as you're not using too much bleach).

As far as the nozzles, we would also soak them in the same bleach/water solution twice a week (we did Sunday night and Thursday night), the other nights we would use a soap/water mix and scrub them with a toothbrush as the O-rings will wear faster using bleach then the rubber hose in the drain.

Posted by Robert LaValley (Member # 4319) on 04-23-2008, 12:41 AM:

So I'm guessing that since the plastic hoses are clamped right to the tray, no visible rubber hoses anywhere it would be safe then to use the bleach for the drains?

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-23-2008, 05:25 AM:

I have found that on the nights that you don't want to use sanitizer or a "nozzle solution" you can soak the nozzles in soda water. The soda water will actually disentagrate some of the syrup left on the nozzle.

Posted by Grant Davies (Member # 579) on 04-26-2008, 10:49 PM:

We pull the nozzles apart nightly and clean with a toothbrush and hot water then rinse in soda water. As we also have a hand gun we pull the nozzle off of it and clean it the same way. We wash the ice-bins out each night with hot water and rinse the clear rubber hoses out with boiling water each night.

Posted by Robert LaValley (Member # 4319) on 04-27-2008, 12:23 AM:

quote: Grant Davies
As we also have a hand gun

Thats one way to have the stand cleaned correctly at night. :-)

Posted by Raymond Christie (Member # 4080) on 05-02-2008, 11:10 AM:

quote: Sean McKinnon
I have found that on the nights that you don't want to use sanitizer or a "nozzle solution" you can soak the nozzles in soda water. The soda water will actually disentagrate some of the syrup left on the nozzle.

This is what my Pepsi service man told me to do. He said to do this and clean them twice a week with a toothbrush and soapy water. He said never to soak them in bleach water because it causes the rubber o rings to swell and then nozzles stick.