Water Safety

This webpage expalins how water safety can be improved in your home.

Follow this link to download our Water safety leaflet.|

What is Legionnaires Disease?

Legionnaires Disease is a kind of pneumonia that can kill. It can affect anybody. However, it mainly affects people who are vulnerable. This may be due to age, illness, a lowered immune system, or smoking.

A bacterium called Legionella pneumophila and some other bacteria cause the disease. They live in rivers, lakes and reservoirs. They are normally in low numbers. They can also live in purpose built water systems. These include hot and cold water systems, storage tanks, pipe work, taps and showers.

In the right condition, the bacteria may grow. This increases the risk of legionnaires' disease. So it is important to control the risks.

Although Legionella are usually associated with larger water systems such as in factories, hotels, hospitals, museums and cooling towers, they can also live in smaller water supply systems used in homes and other residential accommodation.

Legionella can survive in low temperatures, but thrives at tempreatures between 20 degrees Centigrade (68 degrees Fahrenheit) and 50 degrees Centigrade (122 degrees Fahrenheit).

High temperatures over 60 degrees centigrade (one hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit) and over will kill them.

What can I do to reduce Legionella risk in my home?

The risk of Legionella is very low, but you can take steps to avoid it. The risk is greater when you move into a new home. It’s also higher if you are returning after a long break.

keep your water cistern covered, insulated, clean and free from debris
make sure your pipe work is insulated. If it isn’t, ask us to do it for you
run your shower or hotwater tap continuously for at least 5 minutes when you move in or return after a long break. This flushes out any bacteria.

Please remember that if you are going away for over 2 weeks, let us know. Then we won’t think you have abandoned your home.

What can Gloucester City Homes do to reduce Legionella?

We are responsible for some large water tanks in blocks of flats which serve more that one home. We arrange for these water systems to be checked regularly for Legionella.

Hot water safety

Accidents involving overheating hot water cylinders are thankfully rare. However if you know the warning signs, you can help to make sure you and your family are safe if your cylinder does overheat.

These are the warning signs to look out for:

excessively hot water coming out of the hot water taps
excessive noise or ‘bubbling’ from the hot water cylinder
hot water coming out of certain cold water taps (some storage cisterns also feed cold water taps in the bathroom)
steam/moisture in the roof space.

If you think your thermostat may be overheating, please turn it off and contact us|.

If you report a problem with an immersion heater, we will check whether any of the warning signs are present. We will ensure that all immersion heaters we repair or replace have a safety cut out feature.