Legionella control duties for landlords?

We're told that we need to have our rental property inspected to comply with H&SE requirements and that it will cost £81 every two years for the privilege.

The property is a 2-bed modern terraced house with a combi boiler. If the CH system was installed following the manufacturer's guidelines and is delivering hot water to the taps and shower, I don't see why an expert inspection is required periodically. At most, a once-off inspection of the installation should suffice, with periodic checking that water is hot at the taps and shower[1].

Here's what the H&SE advises:

I can understand the need to take such measures for large premises - office block, hotel, factory etc. - but OTT otherwise. It looks like an opportunity to make easy money for those doing these inspections in most other cases.

I'd be interested to hear the opinions of others on this.

[1] We do regular general inspections of the property anyway, but tenant would soon complain if the shower ran cooler than normal in any case.
Reply to
nemo
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Who is telling you this?

A managing agent with a kickback arrangement with a friendly plumber, perha ps?

Yes, if you have any cooling towers in your house and the H&SAWA applies.

The following will probably apply to some degree on the radiator circuit:

- the water temperature in all or some parts of the system is between 20-45 °C

- water is stored or re-circulated as part of your system

- there are sources of nutrients such as rust, sludge, scale, organic matte r and biofilms

- the conditions are likely to encourage bacteria to multiply

Your risk assessment and action would be:

- use appropriate system cleaner/inhibitor on the primary circuit

- system is closed and any water loss / aerosolisation could normally only occur: - when draining the system down - when bleeding a radiator - cover the bleed valve with a cloth to capture any water expressed

all of which you would do anyway.

If the managing agent is inspecting the property already then H&S should be part of that.

Owain

Reply to
spuorgelgoog

If you do a Legionnaires assessment there is no need to repeat it in 2 year s unless the plumbing/heating changes, the answers wil be the same. However I can't comment on the legal requirements.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

ter and biofilms

be part of that.

I would have thought the boiler would reguarly sterilise the system, at lea st as far as Legionella is concerned.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

I doubt if a plumber alone could tell you if you had Legionella in the system. It would need a lab test.

Reply to
alan_m

Legionella is endemic. (ie everywhere) Whether it becomes a problem is more to do with useage of a hotwater system than design. ie it will appear in any part of the system where water is not regularly passing through. The system ideally needs to have very hot water passed through it every once in a while. How often depends on the ambient temperature. (Legionella loves chlorinne free water at around 20/30deg C So water that's once been hot (driven the chlorine out) & is then just warm is ideal breeding ground. The ideal way to catch it is by an aerosol (eg in a shower) by inhalation. Children, the ill and old people are more prone to catch it. Total elimination is impossible. Every puddle has it, every drain. But only dangerous if turned into an aerosol. Anybody who thinks they can eliminate it is barking mad. It can only be reduced & it soon breeds up again.

Reply to
harryagain

It's found in rain too.

Like rain!

Some years back, a team of Italian scientists showed that low level exposure generates immunity to it, which is not a great surprise as that applies to many bacteria in the environment which are potentially infectious to us, rendering them benign as long as your immune system is working.

I suspect it will eventually be shown that the flare-ups of legionella over the last ~40 years are actually due to our attempts to eliminate our exposure to bacteria, including the design of super-clean plumbing systems (which perfectly aligns with the start of the legionella outbreaks), resulting in many people having lost their natural immunity to something that's probably always been in rainwater.

That doesn't mean you can ignore the problem, as regardless of the cause, there are now a significant proportion of people who have lost their natural immunity to it.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

It would be interesting to see if there is any association between those who do get severely affected by it and those who routinely have baths rather than showers and who live where it doesn't rain much.

Reply to
john james

Yes, it's the managing agent telling us: "...the duty to provide a Risk Assessment for water now falls on landlords as legislation, just like a Gas Safety Certificate and PAT tests. This is to ensure that landlords are showing a 'duty of care'."

Funny that legionella inspection isn't mentioned here:

The agent has been on a training course[1], been awarded a certificate and is now offering to do inspections himself. I don't think we'll be availing ourselves of his kind offer.

[1]
Reply to
nemo

It has been around for a long time but indentified. The main cause for infection in the recent past has been the proliferation of mechancical ventilation systems/AC and particularly cooling where water condenses on evaporators/humidifiers.

Also water cooling towers.

Catching it from showers is quite rare, the droplets are too large to be readily inhaled.

It's just a more virulant form of pneumonia.

Reply to
harryagain

Drivel.

There's no legionnella in rainwater.

In domestic situations, the problem has arisen since we all started to have domestic hot water systems. When I was a lad, we heated water as and when we needed it. And then used it immediately. And nobody had showers. Showers were for wuzzers.

There is no such thing as an "ultra clean" plumbing system. All domestic plumbing systems have legionnella, there's no avoiding it. A new system will be colonised in a few weeks. None storage sytems are marginally better. But it lurks on the tap washers and in the limescale.

Plastic pipes are bad news, copper has bacteriocidal properties.

Reply to
harryagain

Drivel. The sourceof outbeaks has been traced back to water towers prevalent on large AC systems in the past. These are being done away with in favour of "dry" technology for heat rejection.

The new air source heat pumps are a potentials new source of legionnela. Especially reversible ones.

Reply to
harryagain

Everybody has been exposed to legionnela. Whether they "get " it depends on the strain of bactria, the level of exposure and their immune sytem.

Bacteria constantly evolve, aided by the various anti-biotics dished out so freely.

Reply to
harryagain

A few years ago, I suggested a study to perform following an outbreak, and got an acknowledgement from the Chief Medical Officer's office. This was to look for a correlation. Consider those who were exposed and infected, versus those who were almost certainly exposed but not infected. Now check plumbing systems they normally use (home and workplace) for no contamination with legionella (as is likely in newer plumbing systems) versus low level contamination with legionella (more likely in older plumbing systems).

I would not be surprised to find those infected (particularly if otherwise healthy) have new ultra clean plumbing systems, and those who were not infected have older plumbing systems with routine low level legionella contamination, affording them immunity. There may also be a correlation with those who work outdoors, frequently exposing themselves to rainwater, and those who don't.

Even in full blown localised flare-ups due to high concentration distribution of the bacteria, the proportion of people exposed who get a noticable infection is probably tiny when you consider city centre outbreaks still only infect a few hundred people max, whereas it's likely 10's to 100's of thousands were exposed.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

True, but I remember getting a facefull of wet air.

Reply to
charles

Yeah, that's what I meant with those. They aren't generally those with compromised immune systems either, so its likely to be due to their immunity to legionella rather than their immune system.

How hard is it to test peoples' immunity level to legionella ?

Reply to
john james

Find yourself a new agent.

Reply to
bert

Yes. In hospitals, it's different, but they have a much higher proportion of people with compromised immune systems.

I presume it's done by looking for antibodies in the blood, but I don't know if the antibodies for legionella have been identified.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Do you know what sort of plumbing system you had at home at the time? (Any tanks, how long since installation, combi or hot water cylinder, etc)

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Assuming that other agents are more transparent and trustworthy, which I seriously doubt. After all, they're just a sub-species of estate agent, aren't they?

He's been relatively well behaved thus far, so I'm going to stick with the devil I know a bit longer, but continue to double-check everything.

Reply to
nemo

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