American Dental Accessories Offers Tips on How to Properly Put Dental Equipment on Hiatus

In these extraordinary times many dental offices are closed or dramatically reducing hours to help protect patients and staff and conform to local/state requirements. Much of modern dental equipment was built around the concept of daily/weekly use and not meant to sit for longer periods of time of nonuse. Minneapolis-based American Dental Accessories, a company providing dental practices with the materials and expert guidance to handle equipment repairs and maintenance on their own, provides guidelines on what you need to do with your equipment so it is ready to go when you get back to practicing.

If shutting down, these are good practices to follow:

1. Shut off your municipal water supply. An electric solenoid simplifies doing this as a matter of routine, but regardless of a solenoid, you will still have a manual valve you can use to shut the water off. Even if your units exclusively use self-contained water systems, you’ve still got water flowing to sinks and toilets which could also leak and cause flooding leading to extensive damage.
2. If using self-contained water systems (which we strongly recommend) you are still going to want to perform routine flushing as water in the units will be standing stagnant and can grow biofilm. ProEdge has produced a great guide on purging. Air purging your lines may be beneficial as well.
3. Run your (dry) central vacuum for several (15) minutes at least once a week as well. A wet ring (wet) vacuum can sit idle for a prolonged period.
4. Compressors generally don’t do well if sitting idle for a prolonged period so they should also be run for 10-15 minutes at least once a week.
5. Most IT professionals recommend keeping your server running 24/7 (the strain of powering down and restarting tends to be worse than just leaving it up) but it’s recommended that individual workstations be turned off before prolonged periods of non-use. Pay attention to your office IT infrastructure.
6. Unplug any other unnecessary appliances or equipment. If it isn’t going to be used, it usually doesn’t need power and leaving it connected may increase your risk.
7. It’s also a good idea to stop in at least once a week just to check on things at large including overall building/office security.

This is also a good time to send in handpieces or other small equipment that need repair or refurbishing. The American Dental Accessories repair department is open so feel free to send us your handpieces, Peri Pro film processors or other items for repair.

American Dental Accessories has a host of online resources available as well, including a Practice Tips archive with tutorials, tips and videos to provide guidance in doing most of these duties yourself.