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20 December 2012

Emergency Lighting For The Workplace

By Alan Rogers


The principal function of emergency lights is to illuminate escape routes but it also illuminates other safety equipment. Emergency escape lighting is activated if the electricity supply to the ordinary workplace lighting fails or when an automatic fire alarm is triggered. It is made to illuminate the fire escape routes to enable them to be safely used in the event of as failure of the main lighting system.

The size and type of your premises will establish the sophistication of the emergency lighting system needed. Borrowed light might be suitable in small premises where the light is from a dependable source eg street lamps. Where borrowed light is perhaps not acceptable, then the quantity of torches in strategic positions can be viewed. Single stand-alone escape lighting fixture units may be adequate in small premises and the can be joined with way out or directional signs.

In larger more sophisticated premises a more comprehensive system of fixed automatic escape light is going to be desired. This is particularly true in premises with extensive cellars or where significant numbers of staff or members of the people.

An emergency escape lighting system should usually cover the following:

* Each exit door

* Escape routes

* Intersections of corridors

* Outside each final exit and on external escape routes

* Emergency escape signs

* Changes in floor levels

* Fire fighting equipment

* Fire alarm call points

* Equipment that will need to be shut down in the event of an emergency

It is not required to provide individual lights for each item above but they should be adequate total light to enable them to be visible.

Emergency escape lighting could be both preserved eg on all of the time or non-maintained eg only operates if the normal lighting fails. Systems or individual lighting units (luminaries) are designed to function for durations of between one and three hours. In practice, the three-hour design may be the most widely used and can assist with keeping small continued use of the premises within a power failure.

If your choice is made to set up emergency escape light, or alter an existing system, any work must be performed with the proper standards.

All emergency escape lighting systems should be routinely analyzed and correctly maintained. Most systems will require to be manually tested nevertheless some modern systems have self-testing facilities that reduce routine checks to the very least. In many cases with manual testing, routine tests may be performed by a single man.




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