What Is Legionella Testing?
Legionella testing of drinking water can be done by either a private service provider, such as an independent water treatment company or individual consultant, or by your local authority, as long as they are qualified to do this and are well monitored. This therefore means that an unsupervised person is permitted to carry out legionella testing within their premises, as much as the legionella risk Assessment itself. However, in order to be sure that the correct levels of protection have been installed, a local authority will require the business to be inspected on a regular basis.
When carrying out legionella testing in your home or business premises, a few different types of sampling methods are used to determine the presence of the bacteria. The most popular is known as a visual culture, which involves isolating a single sample of the bacteria from the atmosphere and then culture it for up to three weeks to determine if it is present in the environment. A physical culture uses mechanical equipment and an incubator to rapidly culture out the legionella bacteria. Both methods are very effective methods when determining the level of contamination in an area.
As well as samples being collected from the environment, some sampling methods are sensitive to temperature, meaning that it is possible to determine the level of contamination in a closed building in a matter of minutes rather than hours, as is the case with many people’s first guess. There are a few other specialized types of sampling which are specifically designed for this purpose, including gas samplers and gas thermometers. For many people, one of the best tests which can be performed on a home or business premise is a laboratory test. These offer extremely sensitive and reliable results and are also highly cost effective for companies and individuals alike.