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Legionella Control Function
What is Legionella?
Legionellosis is the collective name given to the pneumonia-like illness caused by legionella bacteria.
Legionnaires’ disease is a potentially fatal form of pneumonia and everyone is susceptible to infection.
However, some people are at higher risk, including:
• people over 45 years of age
• smokers and heavy drinkers
• people suffering from chronic respiratory or kidney disease
• anyone with an impaired immune system
Where does it come from?
Legionella bacteria are widespread in natural water systems, e.g. rivers and ponds. However, the
conditions are rarely right for people to catch the disease from these sources.
However the legionella bacteria can multiply greatly in water storage systems where the temperature
remains between 20 and 45
o
C
How do people get it?
People can catch legionnaires’ disease by inhaling small droplets of water, suspended in the air,
containing the bacteria such as a shower.
How is it controlled?
Legionella bacteria colonies can be destroyed by raising the temperature of the stored water to 60
o
C for a
minimum of 10 minutes.
For water storage systems that do not regularly operate at 60
o
C or above it is recommended that a weekly
heating cycle to 60
o
C is carried out. This will ensure that the water system stays free of the bacteria.
The APOLLO Apollo GEM has a programmable built-in legionella control cycle that can be used to
automatically carry out this procedure each week.
There are two programs available, one for each heater output. If only one output is used or both Apollo
GEM heater outputs are in the same physical cylinder only one of the programs need be used.
Apollo GEM
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