Legionella Risk Assessments in Paisley
A written assessment of the water system in your rented property, with the control measures your letting agent is going to ask for.
An assessment, not a certificate
There is a lot of nonsense sold around this. No law says a landlord must hold a legionella certificate, and anyone selling you one as a legal requirement is stretching it.
What the law does say, under the Health and Safety at Work Act and the HSE's Approved Code of Practice L8, is that you must assess the risk from legionella in a property you let and keep the risk under control. For a normal domestic let that assessment is short, because the risk is genuinely low. It still has to exist, in writing, and be reviewed if the system changes.
What I produce is a written assessment of your actual system — what is in it, where the risk sits, what to do about it, and when to look at it again.
What I look at
- Stored water. A cylinder should hold at 60°C and reach 50°C at the tap within a minute. Between 20 and 45°C is the range legionella multiplies in, and a cylinder stat turned down to save money sits right in it.
- Cold water held below 20°C — which usually means checking that a cold tank or a long run of pipe is not sitting against a hot one in an airing cupboard.
- Dead legs. Capped pipework left behind when a shower, bidet or old tank was removed. Stagnant water sitting in a dead end is the single most common real finding in older Paisley flats that have been altered over the years.
- Showers and spray outlets — the route that actually infects people is inhaled aerosol, so heads and hoses get checked for scale and debris.
- Voids between tenancies. A flat empty for six weeks with water sitting in it is a far bigger risk than one lived in daily.
- Tenant guidance — a short written note on flushing outlets after a holiday and not turning the cylinder stat down.
Combi flats are usually low risk
A modern flat with a combi boiler has no stored water at all — everything is heated on demand and there is nowhere for anything to sit and multiply. The honest assessment for that property is short and says exactly that.
I will not pad it out to justify a bigger fee. The written record showing you assessed it and found the risk low is what you actually need.
Older stock needs a proper look
Where it gets more interesting is the older housing round here — cylinders in airing cupboards, cold tanks in lofts, and conversions where pipework has been re-routed more than once. Tenement flats that have been subdivided are the ones where I find dead legs.
Those take longer and the assessment has more in it, because there is genuinely more to look at.
Doing it in one visit
Best done on the same visit as your gas safety certificate — one appointment, both documents.
Common questions
How often does it need redoing?
There is no fixed legal interval. The assessment is reviewed when something changes — new tenancy, work done on the plumbing, a cylinder replaced — or roughly every two years if nothing has changed. Many letting agents ask for a two-yearly review as their own policy.
Do I need water samples taken?
For an ordinary domestic let, no. Sampling belongs to higher-risk systems like cooling towers, care homes and larger commercial buildings. Suggesting a routine flat needs laboratory sampling is a way of inflating the bill.
Can you do it at the same time as the gas check?
Yes, and that is how most of my landlord work is arranged. Gas safety, legionella and PAT testing in one visit means one access arrangement with the tenant.
Get your legionella assessment done
Quickest if it is booked alongside the gas safety check — one visit, one appointment with the tenant, both documents issued together.