What is Legionella?

Confirmed by the HSE website, Legionella is a bacteria that can cause diseases in humans when a drinking water supply is infected with it. I could go into what Legionella is in some detail but with so many variations (the species list on Wikipedia is pretty huge) and fairly comprehensive information already available online, I’d just be repeating myself.

The thing that we’re interested in is that Legionella’s ideal temperature to reproduce is around what we like our homes and working environment to be. And that even though it’s quite rare, once it’s present it can be easy to contract. Like so many other illnesses the vulnerable are particularly at risk.

Our solution to Legionella.

Without dumping a load of chemicals into your supply, there are several ways to combat a potential threat of Legionella that fits quite nicely into improving water quality in general. The most closely linked are ultra-filtration (Reverse Osmosis) and UV disinfection. RO systems are great both for homes and light commercial applications where water demand isn’t that high (for example, big food and beverage facilities tend to use water faster than legionella needs to contaminate a supply). When the flow is a bit more consistent or just a bit higher, UV systems deal with that effectively with a bit more bang for your buck.

Both of these are simple to install and maintain and will contribute to the overall water quality. Official guidance tends to revolve around making sure the water never gets to the temperature that we want our environment to be, so isn’t the most useful information. But with these options, the solution is not only more cost effective (in that you don’t have to constantly be heating or cooling your water) but maintenance is pretty simple as well.

In summary Legionella is fairly easy to combat with a small investment and we’d recommend looking at reverse osmosis and UV treatment as a first port of call when getting an idea of how much it’s going to cost.

What not to do.

There's no need to assume that Legionella in your supply is reason for panic. Even in commercial situations like running a B&B. Legionella can present in one analysis and then be gone in another. If that sounds similar to your situation we'd recommend supplying clients with bottled water for a fortnight or so and then retest. If the second sample comes back with a positive result then feel free to contact us for guidance on what needs to happen next. If the result comes back negative then we'd say keep testing fairly regularly for around 6 months (though that depends on the levels your positive result came back with) and then drop back to yearly testing if it's gone. If in doubt, just ask an expert.