Good Advice

Important: The drinking water ordinance has been tightened.

According to latest legislation, landlords, home owners, hotel keepers and operators of large housing facilities are now being held responsible on a much larger scale to ensure the provision of germfree drinking and processing water. There’s a wide range of products and equipment of varying degrees of complexity available today. This can be quite confusing for those in charge and left with the task of finding a feasible solution that both guarantees efficiency and avoids excessive costs.

This is what current legislation has to say about the issue:
“Water treatment and water distribution up to the main access point on the premises are the responsibility of the water supplier. From the main access point on the premises on, the house owner or operator of the facility are in charge of maintaining drinking water quality.”

Which new guidelines have to be adhered to?

New benchmark figures regarding the recording of levels of radioactivity and traces of uranium have been added to the revised version of the drinking water ordinance, as well as a stricter duty of disclosure in case of legionella contamination. Here, the previously lax regulation has been tightened considerably, especially regarding the responsibility of commercial landlords and their administration. Hot water systems with a reservoir capacity exceeding 400 liters are now considered large scale plants and thus have to be registered and maintained periodically. The same ordinance applies to hot water pipes running between a drinking water heating device and its tapping point with a capacity exceeding three liters.