<div style="max-width: 740px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px 2px; font-family: Inter, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(65, 72, 86); -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><div style="display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 8px; margin: 0px 0px 14px;"><p>FOOD SAFE JOURNAL</p></div><h1 style="margin: 0px 0px 14px; color: rgb(14, 20, 34); letter-spacing: -0.02em; text-align: left; font-size: 32px; line-height: 1.2;"><strong>Legionella: The Risk That Builds When Rooms Sit Empty</strong></h1><div style="width: 74px; height: 4px; border-radius: 3px; margin: 0px 0px 22px; background: linear-gradient(90deg, #65C93E 0%, #4EA82A 100%);"><p></p></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(44, 51, 64);"><strong>Legionella is not a hotel problem or a spa problem. It is a water system problem, and the conditions that create it — stored water, long pipe runs, warm temperatures and outlets that sit unused — are ordinary features of Irish hospitality buildings.</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.72; color: rgb(65, 72, 86);">The bacteria live naturally in water at low levels. They become dangerous when a system lets them multiply and then produces a fine spray that someone breathes in. A shower in a room that has not been let for three weeks is the textbook scenario.</p><h2 style="margin: 42px 0px 14px; color: rgb(14, 20, 34); letter-spacing: -0.01em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 232, 236); padding-bottom: 9px; text-align: left; font-size: 23px; line-height: 1.25;"><strong>The conditions that create the risk</strong></h2><ul style="margin: 18px 0px 8px; padding: 6px 0px; list-style: none; border: 1px solid rgb(230, 232, 236); border-radius: 16px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="color: rgb(65, 72, 86); margin: 0px; padding: 15px 22px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.55;"><strong>Water sitting still</strong> — unused rooms, seasonal wings, function rooms, a tap nobody runs.</li><li style="color: rgb(65, 72, 86); margin: 0px; padding: 15px 22px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(237, 239, 242); font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.55;"><strong>Dead legs</strong> — pipework left in place after a bathroom was reconfigured, going nowhere, full of stagnant water.</li><li style="color: rgb(65, 72, 86); margin: 0px; padding: 15px 22px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(237, 239, 242); font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.55;"><strong>Temperatures in the middle</strong> — hot water not hot enough, cold water not cold enough. The risk sits between the two.</li><li style="color: rgb(65, 72, 86); margin: 0px; padding: 15px 22px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(237, 239, 242); font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.55;"><strong>Aerosols</strong> — showers, spa pools, hoses, decorative fountains, misting units. No spray, far less risk.</li><li style="color: rgb(65, 72, 86); margin: 0px; padding: 15px 22px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(237, 239, 242); font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.55;"><strong>Scale, sludge and biofilm</strong> — in tanks, calorifiers and shower heads. All of it is food for the bacteria.</li></ul><h2 style="margin: 42px 0px 14px; color: rgb(14, 20, 34); letter-spacing: -0.01em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 232, 236); padding-bottom: 9px; text-align: left; font-size: 23px; line-height: 1.25;"><strong>Who is most at risk</strong></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.72; color: rgb(65, 72, 86);">Legionnaires' disease is a serious pneumonia. It affects older people, smokers, and anyone with a weakened immune system or an existing chest condition disproportionately. In a hotel or guesthouse, that describes a meaningful share of guests.</p><h2 style="margin: 42px 0px 14px; color: rgb(14, 20, 34); letter-spacing: -0.01em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 232, 236); padding-bottom: 9px; text-align: left; font-size: 23px; line-height: 1.25;"><strong>What a business is expected to do</strong></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.72; color: rgb(65, 72, 86);">The duty sits within general health and safety law: identify the hazard, assess the risk, and control it. For water systems that means a written legionella risk assessment for the building, carried out by someone competent, and a written control scheme that is actually followed.</p><ul style="margin: 18px 0px 8px; padding: 6px 0px; list-style: none; border: 1px solid rgb(230, 232, 236); border-radius: 16px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="color: rgb(65, 72, 86); margin: 0px; padding: 15px 22px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.55;">A written risk assessment of the water system, reviewed when the building or its use changes.</li><li style="color: rgb(65, 72, 86); margin: 0px; padding: 15px 22px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(237, 239, 242); font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.55;">A named responsible person who owns the control scheme.</li><li style="color: rgb(65, 72, 86); margin: 0px; padding: 15px 22px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(237, 239, 242); font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.55;">Flushing of little-used outlets — the routine that matters most in seasonal accommodation.</li><li style="color: rgb(65, 72, 86); margin: 0px; padding: 15px 22px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(237, 239, 242); font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.55;">Temperature monitoring: hot water hot, cold water cold, checked and recorded.</li><li style="color: rgb(65, 72, 86); margin: 0px; padding: 15px 22px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(237, 239, 242); font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.55;">Cleaning and descaling of shower heads and spray outlets.</li><li style="color: rgb(65, 72, 86); margin: 0px; padding: 15px 22px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(237, 239, 242); font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.55;">Records of all of it. As with everything else, the record is the proof.</li></ul><h2 style="margin: 42px 0px 14px; color: rgb(14, 20, 34); letter-spacing: -0.01em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 232, 236); padding-bottom: 9px; text-align: left; font-size: 23px; line-height: 1.25;"><strong>The flushing routine is the practical one</strong></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.72; color: rgb(65, 72, 86);">Most Irish guesthouses and small hotels do not have complex plant. What they do have is rooms that sit empty in the off-season and a housekeeping team who can be given a simple routine: run every unused outlet, hot and cold, for a few minutes each week, with the shower head submerged or bagged to avoid creating a spray — and write down that it was done.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.72; color: rgb(65, 72, 86);">That single routine, done consistently and recorded, addresses the most common way risk builds in a small hospitality building.</p><h2 style="margin: 42px 0px 14px; color: rgb(14, 20, 34); letter-spacing: -0.01em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 232, 236); padding-bottom: 9px; text-align: left; font-size: 23px; line-height: 1.25;"><strong>Awareness training is not a risk assessment</strong></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.72; color: rgb(65, 72, 86);">These are two different things and they are often confused. Awareness training makes sure the people opening that unused wing understand why they are flushing it and what they are looking for. A legionella risk assessment is a separate piece of work, done on site, on your specific system, by a competent person.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.72; color: rgb(65, 72, 86);">You need both. The training without the assessment leaves you guessing at your own building; the assessment without the training leaves a document nobody acts on.</p><blockquote style="margin: 34px 0px; padding: 30px 28px; background: linear-gradient(155deg, rgb(19, 32, 59) 0%, rgb(11, 16, 32) 100%); border-radius: 18px; box-sizing: border-box;"><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); letter-spacing: -0.01em; text-align: left; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;"><strong>Awareness training for the people who open the rooms.</strong></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 14px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.65; color: rgb(201, 210, 228);">Legionella Awareness covers water-system risk for hotels and guesthouses — tanks, showers, dead legs and seasonal wings — written for the staff who actually do the flushing.</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px 0px;"><a href="/courses/legionella-awareness-training" style="display: inline-block; background: #65C93E; color: rgb(14, 20, 34); text-decoration: none; font-weight: 800; font-size: 16px; padding: 13px 24px; border-radius: 10px;">See the course</a></p></blockquote><hr><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(107, 114, 128);"><strong>Sources</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 6px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(107, 114, 128);">Health and Safety Authority — <a href="https://www.hsa.ie/" style="color: rgb(46, 95, 208); text-decoration: underline; text-underline-offset: 2px; font-weight: 600;">https://www.hsa.ie/</a></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 6px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(107, 114, 128);">HSE — Legionnaires' disease — <a href="https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/legionnaires-disease/" style="color: rgb(46, 95, 208); text-decoration: underline; text-underline-offset: 2px; font-weight: 600;">https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/legionnaires-disease/</a></p><p style="margin: 12px 0px 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(107, 114, 128);">This article is general guidance, not legal advice. Your own HACCP plan, safety statement and the officer inspecting your premises are what govern your business.</p></div>

Legionella risk is about your water system, not your sector. Stored water, long pipe runs, showers and seasonal rooms are the conditions — and Irish hospitality has all four.

Legionella: The Risk That Builds When Rooms Sit Empty

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Legionella: The Risk That Builds When Rooms Sit Empty

Legionella: The Risk That Builds When Rooms Sit Empty

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