Outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease can occur from exposure to Legionella bacteria growing in purpose-built systems where water is maintained at a temperature high enough to encourage growth. It can be contracted by inhaling airborne water droplets containing viable Legionella bacteria. These droplets can be created, for example, by hot and cold water systems, air conditioning plant; and spa pools. Hotels, hospitals and offices are typical examples of environments where the bacteria can multiply. Therefore, if you are responsible for any kind of premises, whether as an employer, landlord or facilities manager, you have a duty to understand and manage Legionella risks.
Measuring water temperatures in pipework, especially in older buildings, can be a challenging and expensive necessity. The dangers of Legionella are well understood, and the risks to life it poses means the duty of care is quite a burden. Traditional methods typically involve adding strap-on or pocket sensors to pipework and wiring them back to the BMS system. However, the issues with this are many-fold:
Water-wise, a low cost wireless solution from global associates, uses wireless, strap-on sensors capable of reliably transmitting up to 400m through several walls. Each sensor is considerably less expensive than a single cable run and can be integrated back into the BMS head-end and/or to the Water-wise cloud service. This allows the operator to set their own rules about how and when they are notified, whether it’s via email, WhatsApp, text message or alarm into the BMS. An audit trail of all sensors is also viewable through the cloud platform, giving you the hard data to understand where improvements are needed to reduce risk further.
Investing in Water-wise will give premises managers the peace-of-mind that they are always in the know about their Legionella risk.
