Newsday Tuesday-Ammonia & Legionnaires’ Disease
Ammonia in drinking water
Ammonia in drinking water is most commonly detected through taste and smell. Chloramine disinfection often results in the presence of ammonia in drinking water. However, ammonia can enter our drinking water as a result of the coating on the pipes that the water passes through on its way to us.
Ammonia occurs naturally in soil, air and water. It can enter the aquatic environment directly through municipal waste discharges and fertiliser runoff or through the degradation of plants and/or animal matter. Often, municipal water treatment systems use ammonia to enhance and prolong the effectiveness of chlorine disinfection and reduce the formation of disinfection by-products.
So why use ammonia when you can use a drinking water filter like the P’ure Balance? These include a carbon block filter stage which are the best solution for removing chlorinated by-products. Also, because ammonia is naturally occurring in the body, we are equipped to handle it safely and the amount added to drinking water isn’t enough to cause harmful side effects. However, when high levels are present a filtration system can help to keep water safe and still tasting great. An under-the-sink drinking system such as P’ure Balance can easily reduce the presence of ammonia in customers tap water.
Legionella Control
This week we also wanted to touch on something quite prominent in the water treatment industry, which is as you guessed by the subheading, legionella. Legionnaires’ disease can be caused by inhaling the most minute droplets of water containing bacteria. It’s most commonly found in public areas such as hotels and offices and rarely in homes and usually comes from air conditioning systems, humidifiers, and spa pools and hot tubs.
Using chlorine is often the most common method to deal with bacteria, however, it has its drawbacks. It can be hazardous, difficult to store and isn’t environmentally friendly. Controlling and maintaining the right levels is also a pain.
UV disinfection is the way to go as a much more effective treatment option. Using UV disinfection is less expensive to set up initially, less expensive to run over time, and more environmentally friendly than chlorine. Oh, and the most important part is that it is non-hazardous and produces no negative by-products because it is a physical rather than a chemical process. So, good news: you’re not going to die!
Our Luminor Blackcomb UV Systems offer great benefits for sterilising customers water supplies, including:
- Instant disinfection of microorganisms– such as bacteria, viruses and oocysts while adding no by products to the water
- The UV controller is simple and easy to use– alerting customers to when maintenance is required, for instance changing sleeves
- Includes a colour user interface– this continuously monitors system performance and enables easy visual identification of diagnostics such as: errors/faults, remaining lamp life and UV output
- The single end design– allows for lamp change without the need to drain the reactor chamber
- The audio/visual alarm– automatically triggers should the lamp fail for any reason, alerting the user that the safety of their water is currently compromised
All of our Luminor UV systems are available for domestic use, residential applications, small businesses, municipal water supplies and private water sources.
Continued Shipping Delays
We’re putting this last as it’s the least exciting part of this blog post, and we’re sorry to put a downer on things.
This year has seen a massively detrimental effect on shipping due to Covid-19 and Brexit. Consequently, our stock is arriving later due to minimal space on freights and delivery companies having small availability windows to delivery goods.
Believe us when we say we’re just as frustrated as you are, but everyone is in the same boat unfortunately (and that boat is probably also late!)
We are still continuing to filter out products (pun definitely intended), and are gradually receiving our stock. This is probably why you haven’t seen a big delivery update from us in a while either!
We will of course get your orders to you as quickly as possible, but we just ask that you please expect delays. As I said before, this is inevitably out of our control, but we’re trying to alleviate the effects this has on your orders with us.
