Legionnaires Disease, a warning

[Keeping Up]

Can you catch it from Spam?

[Mitchell]

Anyone whos really worried about it can drop a few drops of peroxide into there water tank once a year to stop any issues .

 

Just make sure you know what you doing .

[Arthur Brown]

UK mains tap water is usually pretty good, add some time swilling about in a holding tank and things can go wrong.

 

There is a chlorine test kit available for swimming pools and you could rechlorinate your own water tank contents as needed and adjust the pH to something mildly alkaline say 7.3 or 7.4 by the PH indicators available in the same test kit.

 

The bacteria issue is the reason why extreme care is needed with solar hot water. On a good day you may get the water to 60C which is fine as it pasteurises the water, on a less good day the solar "hot" water may well be in the middle of the warm range where bacteria grows freely.

 

Current best practise with solar hot water involves the panels having a closed loop of well biostatted water feeding through the tank of a calorifier then feeding the water for hot water through a coil in this calorifier and on to a proper heater at 60+C. This is an expensive system but the cold water from the tank spends little time in the calorifier coil at "warm" before it goes to the heater to be pasteurised. Having two calorifiers could be a reason not to have solar hot water but it lets you harvest low grade heat even in the winter and preheat the "cold" supply to the boiler.

[madcat]

glad I have only got a water can to worry about

[DHutch]

Can you catch it from Spam?

Removed.

[tonyt40]

Found this we back. Worth a refresh?

[cheshire~rose]

A valuable reminder

 

What concerns me slightly is where all these boaters are emptying all this bleach and sterlising solution to?

 

I don't particularly like the idea of our canals being sterile

[tonyt40]

I had posted some advice on Facebook explaining that after sterilising the tank is should be neutralised with sodium thiosulphate (few quid from ebay) prior to flushing out as we do on commercial systems.

[mross]

The biggest risk factor is an aerosol from a cooling water tower used for an air-conditioning system in an office building. This has nothing to do with 'aerosol' sprays such as hairspray or anti-perspirants which don't actually create an aerosol.

 

To catch Legionnaires' disease you have to be exposed to infected water droplets that are small enough to enter the small air sacks in the lung. These droplets have to be really tiny (less than 5 microns). A shower will not create water droplets this tiny.

 

To reduce the risk, it is a good idea to regularly descale shower heads and not to leave shower hoses and shower heads full of stagnant or unchlorinated water for long periods. Calorifiers/boilers should run at 60 degrees minimum. Sediment in calorifiers and accumulators should be minmised.

Edited January 2, 2017 by mross

[Jerra]

To catch Legionnaires' disease you have to be exposed to infected water droplets that are small enough to enter the small air sacks in the lung. These droplets have to be really tiny (less than 5 microns). A shower will not create water droplets this tiny.

You must be aware of something NHS choices don't know about!

 

They say:

 

Although rare, Legionnaires' disease has also come from contaminated showers, sprinkler systems and spas.

[Richard10002]

You must be aware of something NHS choices don't know about!

 

They say:

 

Although rare, Legionnaires' disease has also come from contaminated showers, sprinkler systems and spas.

How often do we find that the NHS, or the government Chief Medical Officer, give advice which, a few years later is changed because they were wrong, ("new evidence has become available" )?

 

I don't know where Mr Ross gets his info from, but I wouldn't think he would state it if he wasn't well informed ??

[Jerra]

How often do we find that the NHS, or the government Chief Medical Officer, give advice which, a few years later is changed because they were wrong, ("new evidence has become available" )?

 

I don't know where Mr Ross gets his info from, but I wouldn't think he would state it if he wasn't well informed ??

Perhaps the HSE, a couple of sites about legionella and a number of companies sites are also not getting the full picture.

[cuthound]

The biggest risk factor is an aerosol from a cooling water tower used for an air-conditioning system in an office building. This has nothing to do with 'aerosol' sprays such as hairspray or anti-perspirants which don't actually create an aerosol.

 

To catch Legionnaires' disease you have to be exposed to infected water droplets that are small enough to enter the small air sacks in the lung. These droplets have to be really tiny (less than 5 microns). A shower will not create water droplets this tiny.

 

To reduce the risk, it is a good idea to regularly descale shower heads and not to leave shower hoses and shower heads full of stagnant or unchlorinated water for long periods. Calorifiers/boilers should run at 60 degrees minimum. Sediment in calorifiers and accumulators should be minmised.

Wet cooling towers (most replacements & new builds are dry these days) have to be registered with the Local Authority and regularly monitored and dosed with biocide to prevent legionella.

 

More details here:

 

http://www.hse.gov.uk/legionnaires/cooling-towers.htm

[mross]

in my company, we removed the showerheads every six months and soaked them in a strong chlorine solution for an hour. We also ran super-chlorinated water through the entire distribution system. But, as this was only done twice a year, I think it was more theatre. We had to comply with USPH guidelines as our ships often visited the US and had the company's HQ was in the US. The Jacuzzis received similar attention. The chlorine / bromine levels were controlled automatically AND were manually tested every 4 hours. Same for the pools. As Chief Engineer, I had to know a lot about the whole subject of Public Health. We also did all possible to prevent Norovirus. The water was never implicated in any outbreaks. It was always faecal-oral transmission that spread noro. I had to record the location of every cabin where passengers were sick and relate them to air-conditioning units serving groups of cabins. But I never found any clusters. Noro is not spread through the air. Even so, we took precautions and used biocides on the AC coils.

 

If anyone wants advice about avoiding noro on a cruise, I'm yer man!

[Bee]

Last year the air con in the car suddenly smelt really horrible, I thought some sort of gas leak was happening but read up a bit before spending any money on it and learnt that bacteria can grow in the system. That was a bit of a worry and I did think about Legionella, Farmers lung and all sorts of other horrors. I bought a Halfords disinfecting spray thing and followed the instructions and everything now seems ok but what its really like I've no idea. Just a thought (or something else to worry about)

[mross]

It is theoretically possible to catch Legionnaires from a shower head but I have read medical literature that says this is not a real risk. Agricultural misting systems do not seem to present a risk. However, as boaters we have tanks and plumbing systems that a more vulnerable to stagnation. When I leave the boat for more than a few days, I do take the shower hose off and drain it and the head. Someone here said that they stored fresh water in plastic bottles. Re-using drinking water bottles is unwise. He may be actually increasing the risk! The shower head may harbour bacteria (not just Legionnaires) which is why I take precautions.

 

to put things in perspective, the incidence of Legionnaires in the US is about 1 in 100,000.

Edited January 3, 2017 by mross

[RLWP]

The shower head may harbour bacteria (not just Legionnaires) which is why I take precautions.

 

Is that what happened to your hair?

 

Richard

[Mac of Cygnet]

 

Is that what happened to your hair?

 

Richard

 

Oy! The baldy army will be paying you a visit! Hanging by the hair is the usual punishment for comments like that.

 

Anyhoo, here is the very latest on Legionnaire's, published only last week. (Warning, there's 52 pages of it.)

[mross]

 

Is that what happened to your hair?

 

Richard

is what what happened to my hair??????????????? Please explain this gratuitous insult!

[system 4-50]

If you are going to worry about such low-risk stuff then never ever use public transport. Don't associate with other people. Avoid breathing as much as possible. And don't take up hazardous activities such as boating.

The main thing to worry about is the sky falling on your head (Asterix).

[mross]

I have been reading up on Legionnaires all morning. Here is a source of balanced, evidence-based medical research which supports my contention that showers are not dangerous. It is now suggested that a common route to infection is aspiration, where fluid is accidentally taken into the lungs by people whose choking reflex is defective or absent. Smoking being a big risk factor. Where people caught LD in a hospital type setting they always found Legionella in the water system. In some countries it is mandatory to test nearby cooling towers for the bacterium and this is why cooling towers were implicated so often, test of water taps was not mandatory so the true source was often missed. There are many different species (50 plus) and nowadays the true source can be more readily identified.

[Mac of Cygnet]

And it's very much age-related too. Sometimes I think that the Bus Pass is the only good thing about getting old.

[mross]

And it's very much age-related too. Sometimes I think that the Bus Pass is the only good thing about getting old.

are you very old?

[Richard T]

Swan necked taps are a known source of infections (not necessarily LD)- stagnant warm water- and are no longer permitted to be installed in hospitals in the UK.

However we take risks all the time in what ever we do in life so some things I don't worry about. I'm going to die at some point of what I've no idea!!

[pete harrison]

In some countries it is mandatory to test nearby cooling towers for the bacterium

Including this country (I have six Cooling Towers under my Supervision ranging from four huge concrete towers to two comparatively small fan assisted modular Cell type exchangers - plus loads of Air Conditioning Units)