Legionella is a group of bacteria that can cause a pneumonia-type illness called Legionnaires' disease and a mild flu-like illness called Pontiac fever. Legionella can grow in drain traps, water pans, reservoirs, and commercial and industrial cooling towers. Although Q-Lab’s QUV and QCT testers have warm, wet conditions that could be conducive to microorganism growth, there have been zero reported cases of Legionnaire’s disease related to QUV and QCT usage over 45+ years and millions of hours of field operation. This is largely because the QUV and QCT are usually run at temperatures that kill the Legionella bacteria. The best means of prevention is perform basic maintenance that avoids water conditions that allow microorganisms to grow to high levels. This includes:

• Draining water from unused testers
• Performing regular maintenance and cleaning of cooling towers and evaporative condensers
• Disinfecting with a mild bleach solution
• Maintaining water heaters at 60 °C (140 °F)
• Avoiding conditions that allow water to stagnate by protecting water tanks from sunlight, and draining and flushing unused water lines
• Keeping all water lines short and maintaining flow

There have been zero reported cases of Legionnaire’s disease related to QUV and QCT usage over 45+ years and millions of hours of field operation. Properly maintaining Q-Lab testers is the best way to reduce the already minuscule risk of Legionella.

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