Financial building banks on UV protection against Legionella in plumbing

Major outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease struck the Netherlands in 1999 and 2006, affecting the health of over 200 people. As a result, the Dutch government now requires all public buildings to conduct a risk analysis for Legionella and to implement a prevention and control plan. A financial building in Amsterdam found that the Legionella bacteria posed a threat to the building occupants—so the building managers acted quickly to find a solution that would ensure reliable protection.

Best Air Choice, a local clean air and water specialist, recommended and installed a UV Pure Upstream system in the basement where the water supply enters the building. All of the building’s plumbing was disinfected with ozonated water to minimize any risk of bacterial regrowth in the UV-treated water supplied by the UV system. Since commissioning of the system, the building consistently reports non-detectable levels of Legionella bacteria.

Best Air Choice identified UV Pure disinfection systems as the best technology to reduce the risk of Legionella and other waterborne pathogens in public potable water systems. The systems’ advanced Crossfire Technology provides a greater disinfection dose over a short path length than conventional “light-in-a-pipe” UV systems and consistently provides 4-log (99.99%) removal of Legionella as well as other potentially harmful bacteria, cysts and viruses.

“UV Pure’s Crossfire Technology is unique in the Dutch market. There are no other products that match the performance and reliability these systems offer.”

~ Arie Brals, of Best Air Choice

The company has been installing and servicing UV Pure systems in public buildings throughout the country and says their customers are extremely pleased that the systems consistently achieve the targeted reduction of Legionella bacteria while being simple to operate and maintain.

Contact us to discuss your UV disinfection needs.

Algoma Orchards achieves water self-reliance with reliable onsite treatment

In 2009, Algoma Orchards opened a 165,000-square foot production facility in Ontario that packages annually over 36 million kilograms of apples for wholesale, presses nearly 4 million litres of juice, produces a variety of baked goods and gourmet foods for up to 90,000 visitors per year at its retail store.

The new facility was built to be self-reliant for its water needs with onsite potable water treatment for the bakery and visitors, plus state-of-the-art rainwater harvesting and membrane bioreactor (MBR) treatment for the reuse of process greywater.

Not long after opening, the facility began experiencing frequent shutdowns in its water supply caused by alarms from the conventional “light-in-a-pipe” UV disinfection systems that were experiencing biofouling of the quartz sleeves and sensor malfunctions.

After years of struggling with poor performance, Algoma Orchards started by replacing the conventional UV system for potable water disinfection with two new Upstream NC 10-75 units. The benefits were realized immediately in the bakery and retail store, as the systems put an end to the inconvenience of water shutdowns for patrons.

“We were constantly shutting down and manually cleaning our previous UV systems. At one point, we were cleaning the systems daily with each one taking about an hour to disassemble, clean and reassemble. Now, the UV Pure systems have been operating for about a year and we haven’t had to perform any manual cleanings. The self-cleaning mechanism is doing its job to keep the quartz sleeves clean, avoid alarms and prevent shutdowns.”

~ Ken Ferguson, Operations Manager at Algoma Orchards

The reliability and low maintenance of the UV Pure systems with Crossfire Technology prompted replacement of the other conventional UV system several months later with an Upstream NC 15-75 for the facility’s rainwater harvesting and MBR system that recycles treated process water from the apple flume, apple washing, bottle washing, pressing and filling equipment.

Contact us to discuss your UV disinfection needs.

Mitchell’s Ice Cream chooses UV Pure for low-maintenance disinfection of rainwater

In 2018, a new rainwater harvesting system with UV Pure disinfection was installed at Mitchell’s Ice Cream in Strongsville, Ohio by UV Pure’s local representative, Rain Brothers.

Mitchell’s Ice Cream is one of the largest ice cream companies in Ohio with a fully integrated production facility. It offers over 35 flavours of hand-crafted ice cream along with a variety of pies, gourmet cakes and fresh fruit smoothies.

The onsite rainwater treatment process reduces demand on local water resources and provides a sustainable supply of water for landscape irrigation. Water is first collected in a 5,500 gallon (21,000 litre) precast concrete rainwater harvesting tank that feeds into a two-stage pre-treatment system. The pre-treatment includes a 20-micron melt-blown poly filter and five-micron carbon block filter that are housed in a five-cartridge stainless steel housing. The final step in the water treatment process is ultraviolet disinfection by a UV Pure Upstream NC 10-50 system.

The UV Pure system is compact, low-maintenance and very easy to use. It is much easier to maintain than the conventional UV disinfection system we installed a few years ago at the Mitchell’s Ice Cream main production facility in Cleveland, Ohio. The system we installed at that location turned out to be very high maintenance because it had to be taken apart every month to be cleaned. We took this into consideration when designing a rainwater harvesting system for their location in Strongsville.

~ Jonathan Meier, co-owner of Rain Brothers

Each UV Pure system is equipped with an automatic, self-cleaning wiper mechanism that prevents mineral deposits from accumulating on the quartz sleeve and dramatically reduces maintenance duties for operators. Maintaining a clean quartz sleeve is essential to achieve the highest possible UV dose for optimum disinfection performance and to avoid unnecessary alarms and system shutdowns.