Anfi Group’s safety protocols against legionella stricter during lockdown period
Each week, the Anfi Group turns more than 5,000 water taps on and off as a protocol against legionella in its resorts. The mandatory tourism closedown obliges this resort, which operates in the south of Gran Canaria, to intensify maintenance tasks, among which are the monitoring of the hot and cold water pipes and the analysis of the parameters of the swimming pool water. The company has retained a small team of maintenance staff who are in charge of turning all of the water taps in the hotels on, one by one, and letting the water run for five minutes to prevent the occurrence of legionella, since its inhalation can cause Legionnaires’ disease, a severe form of pneumonia.
This work is essential to guarantee the safety of tourists when they return, and has been constant since the state of alarm was decreed. “Every week, we turn on all of the taps in the kitchens and bathrooms of all the apartments on the top floors and the following week we start over again, and this is all done manually” explains Mr Alejandro Monzó, Anfi Beach Club director, in a statement. Every week, all the taps on the top floors are turned on in the showers, baths, sinks, bidets and kitchens, so that the building’s water circulates. The water is run at a temperature of 60 degrees and the chlorine levels in the water circuit are raised above the usual average.
Another of the actions taken within the ‘tap operation’ is the cleaning of the tanks in the machinery rooms. These tanks, which connect to the pipes that distribute the water throughout the complex, are activated to prevent the water from becoming stagnant. To do all of this, Anfi has a small maintenance team who are in charge of “adjusting the machinery so that it will be in good working order when the first customers arrive”. Once the doors of the hotels are opened, is when the cleaning and disinfection procedures will be doubled. “Our cleaning protocols will be incremented to include new disinfection procedures and the cleaning rotas in public areas will be reinforced,” Mr Monzó added.
The extensive cleaning of the Anfi del Mar beach, the repairs to the public areas and the daily supervision of the facilities are some of the many tasks that the Anfi staff carries out every day. The upkeep of the gardens, the swimming pools and the inspection of the thousand suites that make up Anfi, along with the renewal of bed and bath linen, are more of the tasks that are carried out to keep the complex in tip-top condition. “We do not want to miss anything, and we are working to have our members’ holiday homes in perfect condition and to demonstrate that Anfi is still very much alive,” concludes the director of Anfi Beach Club.
