WRAS REGULATIONS

WRAS and EN1717 Regulations

There appears to be a general lack of understanding as to what is required by the water authorities when installing certain colon hydrotherapy devices/machines with every clinic/spa/treatment room having its own unique set of parameters in terms of location, water supply both hot and cold, building layout etc. etc.

There are two main considerations one practical and one legislative.

Practical

The colon hydrotherapy machine needs water inlet pressure of approximately 3.0 bar (ideally balanced 1.5 bar hot and 1.5 bar cold) and flow to operate correctly and efficiently with ideally around 100 litres of hot stored water that will allow for three/four back to back treatments of uninterrupted supply.

It’s also probably safe to assume that in most premises the feed for the cold water is off the mains and for the hot water of some sort of stored or pressurised system that also supplies wash hand basins showers etc.

These present two issues firstly the general mains supply can vary from town to town and also local factors play a part such as age of system and/or location multi use locations and/or high use locations e.g. hair salons, laundrettes etc.

Secondly having a salon/clinic/spa with multiple outlets that feed on the primary source e.g. wash hand basins is a high risk and would not pass inspection, the actual devices have to be protected on an individual basis. e.g. Colon Hydrotherapy machine.

It should be pointed out that by installing a Habamat Aquaclean this unit takes just a single cold water feed and has its own built in break tank, pump to supply both hot and cold water at the required pressure and a built in 15 litre hot water cylinder with rapid heat regeneration negating the need for any large water storage unit and compling fully with EN1717

Legislation

There are two main standards to be aware of EN 1717 category 5 and WRAS category 5 put simply the European standard EN 1717 has been adopted in the UK as a national standard and the WRAS (Water Regulations Advisory Service) approval rating is a straight forward national reference for all products that have been tested and have been approved for use as they conform to the standard.

UK Water Authority Regulations

The Hot and cold water feed needs to conform to regulation 31

Regulations 31 to 33 of the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations 2000 concern the introduction of substances and products (including construction products) and processes for use in the treatment and provision of public water supplies. They implement the requirements of article 10 of the European Union Directive 98/83/EC on the quality of water intended for human consumption, in respect to substances and materials used in the preparation and distribution of water, up to the point of delivery to premises.

Regulation 31 of the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations 2000 requires that water undertakers shall not apply or introduce any substance or product into public water supplies unless one of the requirements of this regulation is met. One of these requirements is that the substance or product has been approved by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the National Assembly for Wales (collectively referred to as the Authorities). Similar provisions apply in Northern Ireland.

Full details and information on WRAS (Water Regulations Advisory Service) can be found here, your local water authority can also provide information and guidance.

The key objective is to reduce the risk of contamination of the public water supply from backflow of any fluid. Fluids are risk categorised from Fluid Category 1 to Fluid Category 5 with the following definitions provided:

European Standard EN 1717

In May 2001 the European standard EN 1717 “Protection against pollution of potable water in water installations and general requirements of devices to prevent pollution by back flow” became national standards in the following European countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland. Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The key objective is to reduce the risk of contamination of the public water supply from backflow of any fluid. Fluids are risk categorised from Fluid Category 1 to Fluid Category 5 with the following definitions provided: see above