As the winter wind doth blow, so too inevitable power outages on the BC coast.
If you do not have a back-up source of power for your UV system, it is always good practice to refrain from using your taps (the residual pressure in your water system pressure tank), when there is no power. This is especially important when you have any history or suspicions that your water is not safe without UV treatment (i.e. all rainwater systems; past positive e-coli tests from your well water).
Three pointers to follow when your power comes back on:
1) Be sure your UV is indeed powered up and not in alarm (beeping or wailing). It may need resetting (by unplugging for 10 seconds and/or pressing reset button while plugging back in). If this doesn’t help, sadly the power cut may have caused your power supply/ballast to fail completely. We strongly advise you put your UV on a dedicated outlet (not sharing an outlet/circuit with a jet pump or centra-vac, etc), and use a good quality surge protector. Much more rarely, a power outage could cause the lamp too blow, but it will typically show signs of “blackout” at the ends, if this is the case.
2) When the power is back on if you collect rainwater or have any past reasons (e.g. unsafe water test results), or current suspicions that your raw water may not be safe, you will need to shock chlorinate your household water lines. This means adding ½ to 1 cup of plain household bleach/chlorine to your water filter housing pre-UV, and running the heavily chlorinated water to all your taps and fixtures, letting it sit in the water lines for 15 – 20 minutes, then running clear of chlorine afterwards.
3) If this seems impractical and you choose not to shock chlorinate, at the very least, flush all your household taps by running water for 2 – 3 minutes as soon as the power is back on (“all taps” includes dishwashers, toilets, showers, washing machine, garden taps etc.
