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Posted By Tracey C
Could somebody please help me make a decision. I have written a procedure for the prevention of Legionella in our student accommodation sites. I have followed the guidance in L8. Apart from this guidance recommends that the water outlets in each area are inspected, cleaned disinfected and flushed every 3 months. But practically we have applied this only to the flats that are unoccupied as we assume occupied rooms will utilise their water regularly. The problem i have is over the summer when we have no students on site between July and Sept. Do you have to flush the systems every week or do you think we can inspect disinfect and flush just the once before the students arrive. Can anybody give me their thoughts please.
Thanks
T
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Posted By MT
Personally, I would go with a schedule of regular flushing throughout the period where the flats are unoccupied. Looking at the ACOP, paragraph 54 discusses the risk from exposure being controlled by..... (c) avoidance of water stagnation, which is what leads me to think that it would not be wise to allow the water to stagnate in the pipes over the hottest part of the year with no flushing. However, para 166 says that when weekly flushing is difficult, the stagnant and potentially contaminated water must be purged before the appliance is used. There you may have additional risk because the water has stagnated, and you would have to consider protection from aerosols for the person carrying out the flushing.
Perhaps it would be worth conducting an experiment in the coming summer - regular flushing of some outlets and leave the rest, and have water testing done before you flush the system for the new arrivals? This may give you a better view of what happens in *your* system and a better indication of risk.
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Posted By Tracey C
Thank you for your speedy response. The reasons i asked the question was because over the past 6 years we have not done anything other than get a water chemist in to take samples, but now i am aware of more health and safety issues i have decided to change the way we do things to protect us as a company. Some of our sites have 1000 en-suite facilities so with everything else we do over the summer we have not got enough manpower to flush all the systems more than once.
You have certainly given me something to think about. Cheers!
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Posted By MT
Thinking about it again - do you actually need to have water sitting in the pipes at all over the summer? If none of the outlets are in use, could you drain the entire system and leave it dry?
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Posted By Stuart McPhaden
If you drain the system you require to chlorinate before brining it back into service.
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Posted By Tracey C
Thank you for your thoughts. I have looked at turning the water off on some of our sites but we have contract cleaners coming in over the summer to try and clean the flats,and they will need the water supply. I think the option of leaving the testing and treating until the last 2 weeks before the students come back, then purging the system. Also getting the students to flush the wc's taps etc several times before they use them may help when they arrive.
I Appreciate your thoughts, it does help getting another point of view.
Thank you
T
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Posted By Jim Walker
So.......... you'll need to protect the cleaners even when no one in residence.
Getting students (or anyone else) to flush a few times sounds risky to me. Those first few flushes of stagnant water laden with bugs and the flush creating an aerosol is just what you are trying to avoid with you dosing regime
By the way, what do you do regarding shower heads at the beginning of term?
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Posted By Tracey C
During the summer we dip all the shower heads and hoses in a solution sent to us by our Industrial Water Chemist. He just tells us to wear the PPE stated on the solution Safety Data Sheets. He has never advised us further on how to protect our cleaning contractors!
Any advice you can give me would be gratefully accepted.
T
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Posted By Jim Walker
Tracy,
I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I think your company needs some specialist advice.
You might like to Google - Barrow district council & legionella - to see where you could end up if this goes pear shaped.
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Posted By Karel Simpson
I work for a maintenance company and we look after a few universities who also have student occupation which is empty through the summer months.
Somethign to take into accountwhich we have issued to our operatives (remeber PPE always the last resort if possible) is to use a shower sock. Basically a pipe that covers the shower head and leads diret to the drain which keeps the water contained and prevent any water mist having the chance to be produced. We are brought in to flush the systems through every fortnight during close of accomodation and use the time their for our plumber to maintain any problems and carry out inspections of all relevant appliances, pipes etc.
Hope this helps.
KS
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Posted By Tracey C
Many thanks Karel, i may want to pick your brains a bit more sometime if that is ok. I don't often find many people on this forum that actually deal with University Students and the problems they cause us.
T
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