Tuesday, June 2nd, we started in the "new normal" beginning to organise drinking water sampling for our clients from the housing and commercial industries and the public sector.
We would like to take the opportunity to inform you about our new safety and hygiene measures. We believe it is essential that you can still rely on us as your competent and trustworthy service provider.
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The surprising success of the BBA-workshop "drinking water testing for legionella in theory and practice" held in 2019 made us believe, a follow-up event would be most welcome for an auditorium composed of technicians who have to commission legionella testing for their houses with central heating.
Corona made us cancel all dates in 2020. So, we will try to let it happen in 2021. Scheduled date is May, 20th, 2021 in the Roxy-Palace, the new head quarters of BBA. We are looking forward to welcoming you there!
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The samples from drinking water installations in buildings that have been shut down vor several months show a significant growth of Legionellae in the (temporarily) dormant water supply systems. Early June the Robert-Koch-Institute (RKI) had warned against the new unintended workplace health threat by increased legionella spread in facilities that had been out of operation due to Covid 19.
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The third year in a row, we received an invitation to the yearly business reception of the city of Hanover. Although we work throughout the country it is a special pleasure for us to be invited to such an occasion in our hometown. This year, it was a quite peculiar meeting. The reception is usually hosted by the lord mayor of the city who could not attend: the new mayor had not been elected at the time the reception took place while the former one had been sent out of office disgracefully two weeks before.
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Legionella in drinking water installations with decentralized heating has been underestimated as a health risk for years. Although the German Umweltbundesamt (UBA, Federal Environment Agency) issued a paper on significant legionella growth in these systems in December 2018, statistically relevant and valid data on water samplings and tests for legionella is scarce. Therefore, we decided to make a contribution to this health topic and scanned our comprehensive drinking water data bank. We found 400 records of water samples taken form decentralized systems. The results are not only interesting for experts.
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On Friday, September 20th, 2019, the 125th anniversary of the institute for hygiene and public health (ihph) was celebrated in the university club Bonn. Honored was Prof. Dr. med Martin Exner who has presided the institute for more than 25 years for his outstanding achievements in the public health sector - not only in Germany but worldwide.
All speeches were held not only by excellent experts of medicine and hygiene but by extraordinary capacities in public health research and science. The specialists all agreed in one point: to meet future challenges it will not be enough to gather and apply expert know-how, it needs meta competence as a key factor for every expert to attain good results in the tasks the "global village" presents.
It was a great honor for our board of directors to participate in a very inspiring celebration of a remarkable anniversary. The ihph ist the third oldest hygiene institute in Germany. Chapeau!
The first series of our Passive Cooling Device (PKA) has done an excellent job for almost six years. But it has come of age; the first boxes show significant signs of material fatigue and damages (loss of water, broken weldings, etc.). In addition, the high weight of the steel case of 9,6 kg started to cause health problems at some samplers.
So, in November 2018, the executive management decided to replace the steel with aluminum and create a new, considerably lighter series of PKA 2.0 bringing only 5,5 kg on the scale. The prototyp has been tested for three months now. The new cooling devices will be iussed to the samples April 1st, 2019.
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Compared with the initial study the quality of the data provided and assessed was significantly better. Almost every single drinking water data set could be assigned to the different sampling points: drinking water heater outlet, re-entry in the drinking water heating system and peripheral tapping points (often in apartments).
The rate of samples that exceeded the threshold value of 100 colony forming units per 100 ml drinking water was at 6% a little bit higher than the rate of the former study (5,6%).
What was scientifically interesting is the fact that a seasonal effect was proven: In the summer the occurence of legionella exceeding the 100 CFU-limit was 20% higher than in the winter. Referring to Prof. Kistemann the difference is statistically significant since the data base consisted of 305,000 water samples and test results.
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On November 27th, 2011 we signed the first contract for legionella testing in respond to the new German Drinking Water Directive. Exactly, seven years later, on November 27th, 2018, we started our international business - in Turkey!
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Safety is a high good that we take for granted. But new technologies often produce new dangers no one thought of in the first place. Dense building envelopes, walls and windows prevent sufficient air exchange. In consequence, harmful gases (toxic or explosive) such as natural gas, carbon monoxide or LPG can gather in the rooms especially when the air conditioning is turned off or out of order.
On February 7th, 2019, the educational institute Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Immobilienwirtschaft (BBA) held a conference at the Grand Hotel Esplanade in Berlin on safety topics of operator's responsibilities such as fire protection, carbon monoxide detectors, checks of gas pipes and drinking water installations for potentially pathogenic germs.
The expert panel that concluded the conference circles aorund the question whether the price for safety is too high considering the declining number of accidents.
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In the May issue of energy | water practice, expert magazine of the energy and water industry, first results from the status analysis of the Institute for Hygiene and Public Health of the University of Bonn (ihph) on the occurrence of Legionellae in drinking water installations were published. The great numbers of tests that were assessed lead the authors to one question: How many drinking water installations are subject to testing nationwide?
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