Legionella risk assessment template for a holiday let

A legionella risk assessment template for a holiday let is the same ACOP L8 framework as any small premises, completed with the specifics of a let in mind: paying guests, a system that stands idle between bookings, and often a hot tub. The free template gives you the assessment structure; the £29 Pro Pack adds a filled-in holiday let example and a preset log book that turn the assessment into a working routine. Neither document certifies the let — they record what you checked, what you found, and what you do about it.

If you have not yet read the sector overview, start with legionella risk assessment for holiday lets, which sets out the duty and the risk profile. This page is about the paperwork: what goes in the template, and what you write down at every changeover once the assessment is done.

Why a holiday let needs its own version of the template

Most small-premises templates assume steady occupation. A holiday let is the opposite: the water system is used intensively for a week, then stands still. Between guests, every outlet in the property behaves like a little-used outlet, and a week of standing water is long enough for a branch to drift into the 20–45°C range where legionella multiplies. The holiday let risk profile is otherwise often modest — small properties, short pipe runs, combi boilers on many — so the void period is usually the single biggest line in the assessment.

That means the template has to answer questions a landlord template does not: how long is the longest typical void? Is the system drained down over winter or left live? Who flushes, at every changeover or weekly through a closure, and how is that evidenced? Where the answers make flushing impractical — a remote let with no local cleaner — the honest control may be a fuller recommissioning routine before each season rather than a pretence of weekly flushing that never happens.

The changeover flush routine

The changeover clean is the natural moment for the flush, because someone is already in the property. Build it into the checklist so it cannot be skipped:

1. Start nearest the incoming supply and work outward through the property, so fresh water pushes stagnant water ahead of it rather than around it.
2. Open each outlet gently, or remove the shower head and run a plain stream first — flushing a colonised outlet is itself a release of spray.
3. Run every hot tap until it reaches at least 50°C at the outlet (within about a minute on a healthy system) and every cold tap until it drops below 20°C (within about two minutes). The temperature checker turns those readings into a pass or a flag on the spot.
4. Clean every shower head and hose — descale and disinfect — because the shower is the outlet most likely to deliver a fine aerosol to the next guest.
5. Note anything that did not reach temperature and what was done about it. A hot tap that will not get past the mid-40s is a fault to fix, not a reading to file quietly.

The full method is in flushing little-used outlets, and where the let has stood empty for weeks rather than days, the steps in reopening a water system after a shutdown apply instead of a routine flush alone.

Hot tubs: the step change into HSG282

A hot tub changes the risk category, not just the workload. Warm water held around body temperature, jets driving it into aerosol, and bathers adding organic load is the combination behind a string of spa-pool outbreaks, which is why the HSE gives spa pools their own guidance, HSG282. Our guides on legionella in hot tubs and spa pools and HSG282 set out what that guidance expects: water chemistry checked daily while the tub is in use, a documented disinfection and filter-cleaning regime, and a written scheme the person doing the changeover can genuinely follow.

Two practical consequences for the template. First, a generic one-page assessment will not cover a tub; the assessment must treat it as a separate system with its own controls. Second, the tub is where "competent person" bites hardest. If you are not confident managing spa water chemistry, that is the part to hand to a specialist, and the assessment should say so. A let with a hot tub and no credible tub records is the version of this risk that ends up in front of an inspector.

What to write down at every changeover

The record is the control made visible. Each changeover entry takes under a minute and should capture:

• Date of the changeover and who carried it out
• Length of the void since the last guests (days)
• Each outlet flushed, and the temperature it reached — hot ≥50°C, cold <20°C
• Shower heads and hoses cleaned (yes, and any that needed replacing)
• Anything that failed to reach temperature or looked wrong, and the action taken
• If there is a hot tub: the chemistry readings and what was dosed or changed

Keep every entry for at least five years. A log book holds the running record, and the risk assessment builder produces an indicative starting profile you can work from when completing the template. Neither replaces the assessment itself: the template records your judgement about your property, and an entry you did not make is, to an insurer or inspector, a flush that did not happen.

Using the template honestly

A completed template is a record of the assessment you carried out on a particular property, at a particular time. It is not a certificate — no UK legionella certificate exists — and it does not make the let compliant by being filled in. What it does is force the right questions: where water stands, how hot and cold it runs, who flushes and when, what the hot tub regime is, and what you will do when a check fails. Review it when things change — a new boiler, a hot tub added, a longer off-season — and keep the old versions. The stack of dated records, not the template, is what demonstrates the duty was taken seriously.