The awful and unnecessary disease legionella has one again
made headway in the news. Basildon Hospital were recently prosecuted again by the HSE. They were prosecuted for breach under Section 3 of the Health & Safety at Work Act over failing to
protect visitors and patients adequately from legionella.
Two people have unfortunately paid the price for the negligence
to the water systems between 2007 and 2010.
Alongside huge court costs of £100,000, the hospital spend 3
million (£) in measures to finally combat the bacteria.
Since the 1980s, there has been disagreement within the professional water heating sector about the use of softened water in central heating systems with aluminium heat exchangers. The water softener manufacturers say that you can use softened water, while some of the chemical inhibitor manufacturers say you cannot.
To settle the argument, in March 2012 Harvey Water Softeners got together with other members of the UKWTA (United Kingdom Water Treatment Association) and commissioned BSI (British Standards Institute) to carry out a test and prove, once and for all, who was correct.
The results were announced by Harvey Bowden, the Chairman of Harvey Water Softeners, at the HHIC Annual Conference during the parliamentary reception at the House of Commons on Wednesday 28th November 2012.
The report states that, “Over the lifetime of a modern central heating system, filling with base-exchange softened hard mains water would appear to present no significantly greater risk of corrosion of system metals than filling with hard mains water”.
So one question remains : why there was confusion in the first place... was there another source of corrosion not accused? - further updates coming soon. Harvey is a trusted brand of water softeners and has spent many years perfecting the brand - a trusted seller of Harvey equipment is Spectrum Softeners.
