Glacier Bay Water Cooler

Author: Dave
Date: 06.24.23 - 4:52pm

The Glacier Bay hot/cold water cooler is not a sanitary design :(

I was looking for a water cooler only, but could only find machines with hot and cold. This causes a problem in that the unused side, the water will stagnate and grow nasties.

Additionally, on units that have a single shared water outlet, there is an another problem...there is a T between the two valves. If you only use the cold water, the shared T on the outlet side of the hot water valve will be filled, but never drain. Again growing all kinds of nasties!

I started getting a weird taste, then a giant glob of floating black shit plopped out a week later. Took me a while to figure out where that came from!

Also, if you drain it and leave it unused for a while, you must know about the drain plug at the back of the machine. Without draining that the hot water tank will remain full and get nasty.

I didnt want to junk the machine, but it really had to be reworked. (Note that its not really made to be serviceable)

So here is what I did.

Remove the hot water tank
clip the wires and secure.
Disable the hot water power switch it never powers anything.
plug the overflow tube from main reservoir
tear out the water nozzle and remove T tubing
re-route drain line straight from main reservoir to back drain
take an extra elbow tube and hook it directly to cold water valve outlet

Thats a lot of work and some tight fishing without taking it all apart.

In the end, just buy a different model.
If you dont need hot water, get a cold water unit only.
Do not buy a unit with a single shared outlet for both hot and cold.