Legionella risk assessment by building type
Different premises have different water systems, different occupants, and different levels of risk. Choose your building type for specific guidance on what your legionella risk assessment should cover, what it typically costs, and how often to review it.
Breweries and beverage plants
The single most common legionella mistake in a brewery is assuming that clean-in-place takes care of it. CIP sanitises product-contact surfaces to protect the b...
Caravan and holiday parks
Holiday parks have a seasonal risk profile that few other building types share. Static caravans and holiday lodges sit empty for weeks between lets and, on park...
Care homes
Care homes are one of the highest-risk premises for legionella because of the combination of vulnerable residents and complex water systems. Residents are often...
Churches and places of worship
A typical church building is used for a few hours a week, which in water terms makes it a building full of little-used outlets. Between services the water in ev...
Community centres
Community centres and village halls share a distinctive pattern: many different user groups, an unpredictable weekly rhythm, and no single person who sees the w...
Dental practices
Dental practices have a specific legionella risk that goes beyond the general water system: the dental chair unit waterlines that deliver water to the handpiece...
Factories and industrial premises
Industrial water systems are usually the most complex any single building operator encounters. Process cooling, evaporative cooling towers, humidification syste...
Farms and agricultural buildings
A farm usually has two water systems side by side with different rules. The farmhouse is a domestic dwelling, managed like any home. The moment water is supplie...
Food production facilities
Food factories already live and breathe microbiological control, so the legionella duty often gets absorbed into the food safety system and then quietly lost. I...
Funeral homes
Funeral homes combine a near-domestic building with one unusually wet, high-hygiene workspace. Most premises are converted houses or small purpose-built chapels...
GP surgeries
A GP surgery is a clinical setting bolted onto what is usually a small commercial water system: a mains cold feed, a cylinder or unvented heater, and a handful ...
Gyms and fitness centres
A gym's legionella risk is concentrated almost entirely in the wet side of the building. The changing-room shower block is used by dozens or hundreds of people ...
Hairdressers and barbers
The backwash basin is what makes a salon different from any other small shop. Hot water there is delivered warm, close to skin temperature, because the immediat...
Holiday lets
Holiday lets sit somewhere between a rented home and a hotel for legionella purposes. The operator is the duty holder and must carry out a risk assessment, but ...
Hospitals
Hospital water systems are among the most complex and highly regulated in any building type. The NHS technical standard HTM 04-01 sets out requirements that go ...
Hotels
Hotels combine three features that make legionella management difficult: large stored hot water volumes, guest bathrooms that may go days or weeks without use d...
Landlords
Landlords are often surprised to learn that legionella is their problem. The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 treats a rented home as a place of work for the ...
Leisure centres, gyms, and spas
Leisure centres combine several high-risk features in one building: swimming pools, spa pools, steam rooms, shower blocks used by hundreds of people, and coolin...
Marinas
Marina water systems are unusual because the distribution network is outdoors, long, and split across pontoon pedestal supplies that serve dozens of berths from...
Nurseries and childcare
Nurseries sit in an uncomfortable corner of legionella control because the two safety duties pull in opposite directions. The children in the building are among...
Offices
Office water systems are usually simple: a mains cold feed to the kitchenettes and toilets, a small under-sink water heater or a single hot water cylinder, and ...
Schools
Schools have water systems that are significantly more variable than most commercial buildings because of the long periods of low use during school holidays. Si...
Tattoo and piercing studios
Tattoo and piercing studios are registered with the local authority for skin piercing, and registration inspections concentrate on infection control: sterilisat...
Universities and student accommodation
Student accommodation is legionella management at awkward scale. A purpose-built student accommodation block can hold several hundred en-suite rooms fed by shar...
Warehouses and distribution centres
A warehouse can be the simplest water system in commercial property, or a deceptively awkward one. The floor itself may have almost no outlets, but the welfare ...
Not sure which applies to you?
Use our guide on whether you need a legionella risk assessment, or the cost calculator to see how the type and size of your building affects the expected price.