legionella risk assessment? what happens?

ohreally

I've never come across this in a domestic setting before but in a previous job, water samples were drawn off weekly and collected by an independent lab.

Any water outlet of low use, I suggest running water off periodically.

wolfehouse

We had some estate agents out to enquirer about renting out a property and they said it is now a requirement for all landlords (in our area) to have a legionella risk assessment.

They said it would cost £100 and they would test wherever required and clean and spray the shower head. Can't remember how often it needed to be done, but there was the option of doing it ourselves if we didn't mind the consequences if we got it wrong.

elsien

wolfehouse wrote: »

We had some estate agents out to enquirer about renting out a property and they said it is now a requirement for all landlords (in our area) to have a legionella risk assessment.

Did they by any chance specify where this supposed requirement has come from?

ripplyuk

I moved into a council house last year, and they do these legionella assessments. They said they have to do it each time a new tenant moves in, and told me it might be a health risk otherwise.

I'm not sure exactly what the guy did, as he was in the loft for the whole time. It didn't take that long, less than an hour. The water was turned off, he drained the tanks, then carried out half a bucket of filthy sludgy water. He must have poured some sort of additive in as well, because he was carrying a bottle of something.

piggeh

If there is a change of use then you should risk assess again, so a tenant moving in requires a new risk assessment (possibly not if one is moving in after the other). You don't really need an expert to risk assess though, if the system is being used regularly then the water will not be around enough for legionella to pose a risk. When I worked in a hospital the only areas of concern was where an area wasn't being used, then you get dead legs effectively where stuff can grow.

If you have an empty property then you start to increase the risk. Even then it needs to be vaporised (eg through a shower). A risk assessment would probably just have a mitigating action to run all the taps once a week for 5 minutes for an empty property. If nothing has been done then it may be easier to just flush the system through, they probably cleaned the tank and ran the water through so there was no risk remaining.

wolfehouse

Estate agent said the requirement was brought in after some deaths in rental properties. I'm in Scotland though