Plumbing, Cold Water & Hygiene
Industrial Water Treatment Services
Untreated water quietly destroys plant. Scale builds in boilers, corrosion eats pipework, and bacteria multiply in cooling towers, and by the time it shows up you are looking at lost efficiency, unplanned downtime, or a legionella risk you have to explain to an inspector.
Robinsons Facilities Services arranges water treatment programmes for industrial and commercial sites across Yorkshire and the Humber, covering boiler water, closed heating and chilled systems, cooling towers, and process water. We coordinate specialist water treatment engineers, keep the testing on schedule, and hold the records you need for ACOP L8 compliance.
- Annual water treatment contracts from £385+VAT/year
- Monthly testing visits from £100+VAT
- Chemical dosing systems from £600+VAT
- Cooling tower treatment from £1,200+VAT/year
Get a quote for water treatment →
Prefer to speak to someone? Call us on 01423 226578 →
Industrial water treatment is the chemical and physical conditioning of water in boilers, closed heating and chilled systems, cooling towers, and process water. It controls scale, corrosion, and bacterial growth to protect plant and meet health and safety duties. Where a site has a cooling tower or evaporative condenser, treatment is also a legionella control requirement under ACOP L8.
Your legal obligations
Water treatment is not purely an efficiency exercise. Where your water systems can generate a breathable aerosol, they fall under legionella control law, and the duty sits with you as the duty holder.
ACOP L8 and HSG274
The Approved Code of Practice L8, made under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and COSHH, requires you to assess the legionella risk in your water systems, put a written scheme of control in place, and keep records. The supporting guidance in HSG274 sets out what that means in practice: Part 1 covers evaporative cooling systems, Part 2 hot and cold water systems, and Part 3 other risk systems such as spa pools and process water.
Cooling tower notification
If your site has a cooling tower or evaporative condenser, you must notify your local authority in writing under the Notification of Cooling Towers and Evaporative Condensers Regulations 1992. Notification is free, and you must also tell the council within a month if anything changes, and again when a tower is decommissioned. Devices with no water exposed to the air are excluded. This catches a lot of sites out, particularly where a tower was inherited with the building.
Cooling towers carry the highest legionella risk of any building water system, which is why they need a dedicated treatment and monitoring programme rather than being folded into general maintenance.
Water systems we treat
Water treatment is not one service. What your site needs depends entirely on what the water is doing:
- Boiler water: softening and chemical dosing to stop scale forming on heat transfer surfaces, which is where efficiency losses start
- Closed heating and chilled systems: corrosion inhibitor programmes, with testing to confirm inhibitor levels are holding
- Cooling towers and evaporative condensers: biocide dosing, bacterial monitoring, and cleaning to ACOP L8 and HSG274 Part 1
- Steam boiler systems: feedwater treatment, blowdown control, and condensate management
- Process water: treatment tailored to what the water is used for, including food and drink production
- Domestic hot and cold water services: temperature monitoring and control under HSG274 Part 2
If you are not sure which of these applies to your site, that is normal. Tell us what plant you have and we will tell you what needs treating.
What a water treatment programme covers
A typical programme combines routine testing with corrective dosing, adjusted as results come back:
- Water sampling and laboratory analysis
- Chemical dosing and inhibitor top-up
- Corrosion monitoring using coupons or online monitoring
- TDS and conductivity testing to control blowdown and dosing rates
- Descaling and system cleaning where deposits have built up
- Softener servicing and resin regeneration
- Pipework flushing and disinfection
- Written records and reports for audit and compliance
For closed heating and chilled systems, the recognised industry guidance is BSRIA BG 50, which sets out how water quality should be managed across the life of a closed system, and BS 8552, which covers sampling and monitoring of water from building services closed systems. We work to both, so the testing regime and the records behind it are what a consultant or auditor expects to see.
Industries we work with
We treat water systems for manufacturing and food production sites, data centres, hospitals and care settings, hotels and leisure centres, schools, and commercial property across the region.
The plant differs but the principle does not: test, dose, record, repeat, at the interval the system actually needs.
Pricing
What you pay depends almost entirely on the scale of your site. A single closed heating loop and a full industrial facility with multiple boilers and cooling towers are different jobs by an order of magnitude, so the figures below are grouped by site type rather than presented as one range.
Small commercial: from £385+VAT/year
A single-system programme, covering one closed loop, one dosing system, or one cooling tower. Suits offices, small commercial premises, and single-plant sites that need treatment and records in place without a full facility programme.
Mid-tier multi-system: typically £2,000 to £5,000+VAT/year
For sites running several systems together, for example HVAC plant, closed loops, and chemical dosing. Covers scheduled testing across all systems, dosing, and consolidated reporting.
Get a quote for water treatment →
Large industrial full-facility: £5,000 to £50,000+VAT/year
Full-facility programmes for sites with multiple boilers, cooling towers, closed loops, and continuous monitoring. Manufacturing, food production, and process sites typically sit in this band. Priced bespoke after a site survey.
Individual services
Where you need a single element rather than a full programme, these are priced separately:
- Monthly testing visits: from £100+VAT per visit, for sites needing closer monitoring between scheduled service dates
- Chemical dosing systems: from £600+VAT for supply and installation of a dosing pump and monitoring setup
- Cooling tower treatment: from £1,200+VAT/year per tower. In practice, a typical small cooling tower programme runs £1,500 to £2,500+VAT/year once capacity, configuration, and monitoring frequency are assessed on site.
We publish our entry rates so you can budget before you enquire, then confirm a fixed price once we have seen the plant.
How we support you
We coordinate specialist water treatment engineers, set the testing frequency to match your systems, and make sure the results and dosing records are kept in a form that stands up to an audit or an HSE visit. If a result comes back out of range, we tell you what it means and what we are doing about it, rather than filing it.
Water treatment usually sits alongside other water hygiene obligations, so it can be scheduled into a PPM and compliance contract with your legionella risk assessment, sampling, and tank cleaning under one arrangement.
For a one-off system clean, dosing installation, or survey, we quote through quoted works with a fixed price before we attend.
Contract customers also have access to our 24/7/365 out-of-hours call-out facility for water system failures affecting safety or production. This is a separate service available to PPM contract customers only.
Robinsons Facilities Services is SafeContractor approved and holds UKAS ISO 9001 certification.
Get a quote for water treatment →
Prefer to speak to someone? Call us on 01423 226578 →
Industrial Water Treatment Services FAQs
It depends on the scale of the site. With Robinsons Facilities Services, a small commercial single-system programme starts from £385+VAT/year. A mid-tier multi-system site running HVAC plant, closed loops, and dosing together typically runs £2,000 to £5,000+VAT/year. A large industrial full-facility programme with multiple boilers, cooling towers, and continuous monitoring runs £5,000 to £50,000+VAT/year. Individual services are also priced separately: testing visits from £100+VAT, dosing systems from £600+VAT, and cooling tower treatment from £1,200+VAT/year. Send us an enquiry or call us on 01423 226578 for a quote based on your plant.
A typical contract covers scheduled testing, chemical dosing, and written records. Depending on your systems that means water sampling and analysis, inhibitor or biocide top-up, corrosion monitoring, conductivity and TDS testing, and reporting you can produce at audit. Cooling tower programmes also include bacterial monitoring and periodic cleaning. We set the visit frequency to match what your systems need rather than applying a standard interval.
Yes. Cooling towers and evaporative condensers carry the highest legionella risk of any building water system, and treatment is a requirement under ACOP L8 and HSG274 Part 1. You also have a separate legal duty to notify your local authority that the tower exists, under the Notification of Cooling Towers and Evaporative Condensers Regulations 1992. A cooling tower without a documented treatment and monitoring programme is a serious compliance gap.
It depends on the system. Cooling towers generally need monthly or more frequent monitoring given the risk. Closed heating and chilled systems are typically tested a few times a year to confirm inhibitor levels are holding. Steam boilers often need weekly or daily checks on feedwater. We set the frequency from your risk assessment and the manufacturer requirements, not from a standard template.
Three things, usually in this order. Scale builds on heat transfer surfaces and your fuel bills climb. Corrosion attacks pipework and heat exchangers, shortening plant life and eventually causing leaks. And in systems that generate an aerosol, bacteria multiply, which turns an efficiency problem into a health and safety one. Restoring a neglected system almost always costs more than maintaining it would have.
RO is Reverse Osmosis, a process of forcing water through a membrane to create a stream of water that is filtered, as well as rejected water. This can help to remove heavy metals and contaminants like volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Investing in industrial wastewater treatment solutions can lead to cost savings through improved equipment efficiency, reduced downtime, lower maintenance expenses, and compliance with regulations, thus avoiding fines and penalties.
Last updated: 29/07/2026
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