What is a legionella monitoring log sheet?

A legionella monitoring log sheet is the form that turns a check into evidence: the date, the task, the outlet or asset, the result, who did it, and what was done if the result was wrong. Filled in at the moment of the check and kept for at least five years, a run of sheets becomes the log book that shows your monitoring regime actually happened. This page gives you the structure of each sheet, how to run a paper set, and where the web version does the job for you.

The four sheets a monitoring regime needs

Most regimes are covered by four sheet types, one per task family:

• Flushing log. One row per little-used outlet per week: date, outlet name, temperature reached at the end of the flush, initials. This is the highest-frequency sheet, so it earns the simplest layout. See flushing little-used outlets.
• Temperature log. The monthly round: calorifier flow and return, sentinel outlets, and the rolling share of all other outlets. Columns for temperature, time to temperature, pass/fail and action. The full column set is at temperature monitoring template, with targets from the temperature chart.
• Cleaning log. Shower heads and hoses dismantled, descaled and disinfected, typically quarterly: date, fitting, method, initials. See cleaning shower heads.
• Inspection log. The six-monthly tank inspection and annual calorifier inspection: condition found, temperature of stored water, defects, action. See tank inspection and calorifier inspection.

Behind all four sits the remedial action record: whenever any sheet records a failure, the action, the person who authorised it and the retest result get their own entry. That record is what closes the loop.

How to run a paper set

Paper works well for a small premises if you run it deliberately. Print a month's sheets at a time. Keep them in one folder or bound book, at the point of work where possible, the plant room wall next to the calorifier is better than a locked office. Fill each sheet in while the check happens, never at the end of the month, and never copy forward last month's figures, because identical readings are the first thing an inspector notices. When a sheet is full, file it. When the folder reaches five years, you have the retention period ACOP L8 expects.

The web log book

The legionella log book on this site is the same set of sheets on screen. You name your outlets and assets once; it then prompts each check when it falls due, stamps the date, applies the target figures, and builds the five-year history automatically. Borderline readings can be checked against the temperature checker as you go. Plenty of sites run a hybrid: the web log as the live record, a printed temperature sheet by the calorifier for whoever takes the readings. If you want the full paper layout instead, the log book template guide covers what the bound version should contain.

What the sheets prove, and what they do not

Five years of completed sheets shows an inspector, an insurer or a court that the regime in your written scheme of control was implemented and managed: the flushes happened, the temperatures were taken, the failures were acted on. That is a great deal, and it is exactly what ACOP L8 asks for. What the sheets do not do is certify the water as safe, today or ever. A log records the controls; the risk of the system itself lives in the risk assessment, and the two documents only mean something together. If you are building the regime from the beginning, the risk assessment builder produces the assessment that tells you which sheets your system actually needs.