Holiday lets and Airbnb: do you need a Legionella risk assessment?

If you let out a cottage, flat or spare annexe to paying guests, you've got the same basic Legionella duties as any other landlord. In some ways holiday lets carry more risk, because they sit empty between bookings and over the quiet season. The good news is that keeping on top of it is mostly a matter of good habits at changeover.

Early March is when a lot of hosts are getting ready for the season. Properties that have been closed or barely used over winter are about to start taking bookings again, which makes it the perfect time to get the water side sorted.

Does the law apply to holiday lets?

Yes. If you're letting a property to paying guests, you're running a business, and the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 says you mustn't put other people at risk through what you do. COSHH treats Legionella as a hazardous substance, and the HSE's Approved Code of Practice L8 explains how to assess and control it.

It makes no difference whether you list it on Airbnb, use a booking agency or take bookings directly. Nor does it matter if it's a whole house or a room in your own home that guests use. If people are paying to stay and use the water, you need to have assessed the risk and be managing it.

Short-term lets are also seeing more local regulation. Scotland, for example, now requires short-term lets to be licensed by the council. Rules elsewhere are changing too, so check what your own local authority expects. We'd never suggest relying on someone else's area as a guide.

If you'd like the general background for landlords, have a read of do landlords need a Legionella risk assessment?

Why holiday lets are a particular risk

Legionella grows in water between roughly 20°C and 45°C, especially where it's stagnant. Holiday lets tick a few boxes:

• Empty spells. Days or weeks between guests, and sometimes months over winter, with no water moving at all.
• Heating switched off. To save money between bookings, so the hot water cylinder cools down.
• Showers. Usually the first thing guests use when they arrive, often after a long trip, releasing whatever has built up in the pipes.
• Guests you don't know. Some may be older or have health conditions that make them more vulnerable.
• Extras. Hot tubs are a known Legionella risk in their own right, and outdoor showers and garden taps add stagnant pipework too.

What a holiday let assessment covers

For most holiday homes it's a straightforward job, much like any other rented home. We'd look at:

1. how hot water is produced and stored, and whether it reaches 60°C in the cylinder and at least 50°C at the taps
2. whether cold water stays below 20°C, and whether there's a loft tank
3. every tap and shower, including outdoor ones and any in outbuildings
4. dead legs and redundant pipework
5. how long the property sits empty, and what happens between bookings
6. any hot tub, pool or other water feature
7. who does the changeovers and how the checks are recorded

You'd get a short report with a risk rating, any actions and a simple changeover routine you or your cleaner can follow.

A simple changeover routine

This is where most of the risk gets controlled. The exact routine should come from your assessment, but for a typical holiday home it might look like this:

• Heat the water before guests arrive. If the hot water's been off, turn it back on in good time so the cylinder reaches 60°C before anyone showers.
• Flush every outlet. If the property's been empty for a week or more, run every tap and shower, hot and cold, for a few minutes until the water reaches its normal temperature. Do the showers gently, with the head held low, and keep your face away.
• Flush toilets, with the lid down.
• Check the shower heads. Clean and descale them regularly, more often in hard water areas.
• Keep a log. A sheet in the cleaning folder with the date, what was flushed and who did it. If the property's empty for a longer spell, flush weekly where you can.

For long closures, such as a winter shutdown, our guide on reopening a building after closure has a fuller checklist. The principles are the same for a cottage as for an office, just on a smaller scale.

A word on hot tubs

Hot tubs keep warm water at around body temperature and blow it into a fine spray right at face level. That's ideal for Legionella if the water treatment isn't spot on. The HSE has specific guidance on spa pools (HSG282), and commercial hot tubs at holiday lets need proper, regular water treatment, testing and cleaning, with records. If you've got one, it should be part of your risk assessment, and you need to be confident whoever looks after it knows what they're doing.

A typical scenario

Picture a two-bed holiday cottage that's shut from November to March. The water heater's been switched off, and there's a little-used outdoor shower in the garden left over from the previous owners. The first guests arrive the weekend after the owner reopens.

A sensible approach would be to get the hot water back up to temperature a day or two before, flush every outlet including the outdoor shower, descale the shower heads and log it all. Then think about whether that outdoor shower is really worth keeping. If not, removing it properly, rather than just capping it, takes away a dead leg for good.

Using a management company?

Plenty of hosts use a management company or a cleaner to handle changeovers. That's fine, but agree in writing who's doing the flushing and checks, and make sure they're actually recorded. If it isn't written down, assume the responsibility's still yours.

Keeping it simple

For most holiday lets, managing Legionella comes down to a decent assessment and a changeover routine that actually gets followed. We can carry out a holiday let risk assessment, sort out any dead legs or tank issues, and if you've got several properties, our Legionella maintenance visits can take care of the routine checks for you.