Water Hygiene & Temperature Checks

Employers’ duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act extend to risk from water borne risks such as Legionella ETC.

As well as requiring a Risk Assessment employers should also utilise the services of competent persons in applying the provision of Health and Safety Law requirements.

SCOPE AND APPLICATION

A reasonably foreseeable risk of exposure to Legionella bacteria exists in:

• Water systems incorporating a cooling tower.

• Water systems incorporating an evaporative condenser.

• Hot and cold-water systems

• Other plant and systems containing water which is likely to exceed 20°C and which may release a spray or aerosol (i.e., a cloud of droplets and/or droplet nuclei) during operation or when being maintained.

Experience has shown that cooling towers, evaporative condensers and hot and cold-water systems in a wide variety of workplaces present a risk of exposure to Legionella bacteria.

A water system includes all plant/equipment and components associated with that system, e.g., all associated pipework, pumps, feed tanks, valves, showers, heat exchangers, quench tank, chillers etc. It is important that the system is considered as a whole and not, for example, the cooling tower in isolation. Dead legs and parts of the system used intermittently e.g. test loops in engineering factories and injection moulding machines, also need to be included as part of the system since they can create particular problems with microbial growth going unnoticed. Once brought back on-line they can cause heavy contamination, which could disrupt the efficacy of the water treatment regime.

Eclipse Maintenance Limited provide services to ensure all legislative obligations are met for systems under an employer’s control.