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Legionnaires disease is a form of pneumonia, caught through breathing in tiny droplets of water contaminated by the Legionella bacteria that live in streams, rivers and lakes. They also thrive in human-made environments like hot tubs, humidifiers and traditional air conditioning systems.
You can’t catch it by drinking water that contains the bacteria or from infected people. Most of those who get Legionnaires pick it up in a hotel, office, or hospital. The symptoms can include a cough, being short of breath, chest pain when breathing or coughing, and a high temperature.
While Legionnaires is fairly rare it can be extremely serious if your immune system isn’t as good as it could be, you smoke, have a lung disease or are middle-aged or older.
You might need to go into hospital if you're diagnosed. The treatment can involve an antibiotic injection, oxygen through a face mask or nasal tubes, or a machine to help you breathe.
Once you’re well enough to go home you might have to take antibiotic pills at home for as long as three weeks. While most people recover well, it could take a while until you feel properly back to normal.
The disease is serious enough to merit special UK legislation, detailed in an HSC guide called
Approved Code of Practice (ACOP) Legionnaires’ Disease: The control of Legionella bacteria in water systems L8.
The main cause of Legionnaires disease contamination in ordinary air conditioning systems is bad design and poor maintenance. Every water-based aircon system should checked regularly and should also be cleaned frequently to stop the build-up of the algae, rust, sludge and limescale that the bacteria flourish on.
So what happens if it turns up at your business premises? As you can imagine, many companies will struggle to cope when one or more staff members are off sick for more than a week. A Legionnaires outbreak at your place it isn’t great for your reputation, either. So it’s good to know that while there are an estimated
40 million evaporative coolers on the planet,
Legionnaires has NEVER been blamed on a wetted media evaporative cooler.
Evaporative cooling isn’t a good environment for bacteria to settle and grow. The tech doesn’t contain dirty or stagnant water. The coolers automatically drain when not being used, so there’s no old water hanging around where diseases can breed. And the systems run on water at a low temperature, far too chilly for Legionella.
Evaporative cooling units’ integral water management system means there’s no corrosion or limescale and the systems don’t produce any aerosols because the air flows over the wet pads far too slowly to create and spread a fine mist. The units are maintained by qualified people to a regular schedule, and every service comes with a Legionella test and certificate.
Last but not least the supporting documentation and manual for the systems we recommend actually go further than the Government’s legislation recommends, giving you a belt-and-braces safety net.
Evaporative cooling tech costs less than old-fashioned aircon to buy. It’s easy to fit and retrofit, inherently simple, and easy to maintain. It’s natural, clean, reliable and uses a lot less energy than a regular air conditioning system, saving you a fortune in electricity bills. No chemicals, no muck, no disease.
If you’d like to take your business premises to a fresh new place where the cooling system is comfortable, safe, clean, environmentally responsible, extremely efficient and creates a great atmosphere to work in, give us a call.