I am concerned about risks of legionnaires disease from brief comments on TV News, eg storage tanks, dead-end branches in pipes, shower heads.

I have all of these in my house: header tanks have covers but are not sealed, some tees have been capped 6-12” where some services have been disconnected, and the shower doesn’t get used if we are away (which could be as long as 2 months (It was recently reported that a patient at Bath Hospital died because he used a shower which might not have been used recently and the shower head was described as contaminated) There was also a reference to long pipes with low (no?) flow. Even domestic pipes can be long and might not have flow if only serving, say, an ensuite in a room infrequently occupied.

Also at my village hall there are showers for use after sports but sometimes some of the showers heads may not be used for several months so I can see that the water sitting on top of the push button tap on each shower is not going be flushed and of course the shower head has little holes open to atmosphere. There are no header tanks and the hot water system is pressurised and driven by pumps but looking at pipe runs it is possible there will be air trapped where pipes run up and over building features.

I would appreciate any comments as to whether legionnaires could be a problem in the systems I have described.

Yoggo

try this

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/external/faq/legion.htm

or this

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/legionnairesdisease.html

or even.....http://www.legionella.org/general_info.htm

hope this lot helps