Swiftclean solves a tricky Legionella problem for London based hotel
By David Randlesome, National Sales Manager for Legionella Services
Swiftclean has recently been working with an American company, which owns a chain of 6 UK-based hotels, to tackle some worrying legionella results and bring the chain back into full legionella compliance. Our services also resolved the issues surrounding the reopening of a newly acquired hotel which, due to being shut for the best part of a year, had become a breeding ground for legionella bacteria.
We initially became involved with this hospitality company at the end of 2022 after they contacted us through our website.
One of our first tasks was to fit an automatic dosing system in one of the group’s existing hotels, which meant (combined with pre-flushing and disinfection), within a month we were receiving back clear results. Part of the reason they were getting high Legionella bacteria counts was because of the age of the building which was previously an old townhouse and the system needed to be brought up to ACoP L8 standard.
The chain acquired a new hotel in the Paddington West London area. It had been shut for a long period of time, and water biofilm contamination was present throughout the building. The site got in touch with us in late March 2023. As the water system hadn’t been maintained for ten months, this meant:
• No flushing of outlets had been taking place.
• The system had accumulated a lot of stagnant water.
• They had multiple legionella positive results – some extremely high.
• The water system maintenance program had been completely neglected.
They asked us to carry out some initial sampling to find out what was going on, prior to reopening the hotel.
Legionella results for the building came back excessively high throughout the system; for example, some of the system results for Legionella positive were over 1200 cfu / volume, (for reference over 100 cfu / volume is considered an action limit under the ACoP L8).
After assessing the results, we carried out a tank drain down, clean and disinfection; then a full system disinfection using stabilised hydrogen peroxide.
48 hours later we reattended to resample, taking legionella samples from the sentinel points. The sentinel points are the nearest and furthest points from the water heater and/ or calorifier. Whilst on-site, our plumber surveyed for the installation of a proportionately dosed automatic dosing unit.
The results were in –still showing legionella bacteria throughout the system, albeit at a much lower level. Progress at least. As soon as we got these results back (within two weeks of our initial visit) we repeated the process above, but with a higher concentration of disinfection, and once again in the 48 hours following, we resampled.
By 5th May, some huge results were still being recorded, with some Legionella positives at nearly 1800cfu /volume; although progress had been made with Legionella now only present in three areas as opposed to ten. The main issue was some stubborn biofilm.
The proportionately dosed automatic dosing unit was fitted on the 10th of May and due to the system alterations, a new Legionella Risk assessment was carried out on the 19th of May (a turnaround of under a week after receiving the purchase order).
Upon completing the risk assessment, we returned for a third round of sampling which still showed some positives, due to the unit only having been installed for a few days.
However, samples taken from the showers on 1st June all came back completely clear of Legionella, as a direct result of the unit being installed and the disinfections that had taken place. The results came back on the 15th of June. We were delighted to have achieved a breakthrough at last!
After receiving the clear results, we again visited the site and on the 16th of June, we retook the sentinel samples. On the 27th of June, the final results were in – clear legionella results on every sample!
Whilst all the sampling and testing had been taking place and because of the critical opening date for the hotel of 1st July, the hotel team had also contacted another contractor to ask for samples to be taken. Unfortunately, these were taken incorrectly and were therefore of no use.
As a result of this, the UK Group Director specifically asked for Swiftclean to be the only water hygiene company that the group used moving forward. This was great for us, that the client had gained trust in us and our expert compliance team.
On July 1st, the hotel finally opened its doors. The hotel chain and Swiftclean collaborated to successfully bring the building up to L8 compliance standards. It was a great accomplishment for all involved!
