CareHomeDeskCareHomeDeskAny cooling tower or evaporative condenser at a care home site must be notified to the local authority under the Notification of Cooling Towers and Evaporative Condensers Regulations 1992. A written L8 control scheme and monthly microbiological monitoring are mandatory.
Any cooling tower or evaporative condenser present at a care home site must be notified in writing to the local authority under the Notification of Cooling Towers and Evaporative Condensers Regulations 1992. This applies even to small or infrequently used units, and notification must be updated if a device is decommissioned, or if a new one is installed, so the local authority's register of local risk sites remains accurate.
Cooling towers and evaporative condensers operate at temperatures well within the range that favours Legionella growth and generate substantial volumes of fine aerosol that can travel considerable distances on the wind, which is why they have been the source of several well-documented Legionnaires outbreaks affecting people who were never inside the building housing the tower. This makes them the single highest-risk category of water system covered by L8, warranting a level of control significantly beyond that applied to domestic hot and cold water systems.
A cooling tower or evaporative condenser must have its own written L8 control scheme, separate from but coordinated with the site's wider water risk assessment, covering the specific biocide dosing regime, drift eliminator maintenance, periodic mechanical cleaning and descaling, and the responsibilities of the competent contractor managing the system day to day. The scheme must be reviewed regularly and kept current as the equipment or its usage pattern changes.
Mandatory monthly microbiological monitoring of the cooling water is required, alongside regular checks of biocide and corrosion inhibitor dosing levels, water quality parameters such as pH and conductivity, and the physical condition of the tower including fill media and drift eliminators. Results should trigger a defined escalation process if Legionella counts exceed action levels, similar in principle to the sampling regime used for domestic water systems but generally more frequent given the higher risk profile.
A care home operating an unnotified cooling tower, or one where the control scheme and monitoring have lapsed, is exposed to criminal prosecution under the Notification Regulations for the notification failure alone, separate from any prosecution under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 for failing to manage the risk itself. Where a resident, staff member or member of the public contracts Legionnaires disease traceable to a poorly maintained tower, the potential liability extends to corporate manslaughter and individual director or manager liability under health and safety law.
CareHomeDesk gives you compliance checklists, maintenance logs, and contractor management tools built around exactly this kind of knowledge.