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Emergency Lighting


Health and Safety legislation requires all commercial and public premises to have an emergency lighting installation that complies with BS5266:2004. Smart Living is experienced at specifying, installing and maintaining compliant emergency lighting systems.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE BEHIND THE LEGISTLATION?

The main reason for installing an emergency lighting system is to enable the building to meet fire safety legislation in a way that is visually acceptable, meets the user’s needs for ease of operation and maintenance and enables safe passage in the event of fire or power failure.

The units may be self-contained or central battery supplied.

Maintained means luminaries which are normally in operation and fed from the mains supply - should this fail, power is provided from an auxiliary source. Non-maintained luminaries only operate in the event of conventional supply failure.

WHY CARRY OUT EMERGENCY LIGHTING MAINTENTANCE?

The Fire Safety Regulatory Reform Order, which came into effect on 1 October 2006 has consolidated requirements of existing fire regulations into one piece of legislation requiring a ‘responsible person or persons’ to implement a fire risk assessment of the premises.

Part of this assessment requires that hazards to people must be compensated for by appropriate emergency lighting and other fire precautions. Compliance with BS5266-1:2004 meets these requirements.

The employer / educational officer now has a duty not only to install emergency lighting in any area that may be used in darkness but also to ensure that that it is maintained and tested correctly. BS5266-8:2004 recommends that ‘regular servicing is essential’ and that the occupier/owner of the premises shall appoint a ‘competent’ person to supervise servicing of the system.

A reliable and measurable means of ensuring that your existing emergency lighting installation remains compliant and fully functional is to instigate a plan of routine maintenance and testing being carried out by a ‘competent’ person, supplemented by daily and monthly user tests.

BS5266-8:2004 recommends the following tests and inspections to be carried out:

    Daily
  1. » Indicators of central power supply should be visually inspected for correct operation

    2. Monthly
  2. » Each luminaire should be switched into emergency mode to ensure operation of each lamp
  3. » Each luminaire should be returned to normal mode ensuring that mains indicators are energised

    4. Annually

    The above monthly inspections should be carried out plus the following additional tests:-

  4. » Each luminaire should be tested for its full rated duration
  5. » The charging arrangements should be checked for proper functions
  6. » The date of the test should be recorded in the ‘system log book’
  7. » A certificate of inspection and testing shall be issued to the responsible person

BENEFITS OF THE SERVICE

Smart Living carries out annual inspection and testing of emergency lighting systems to comply with BS5266-8:2004. We undertake testing to make sure the lights operate for their rated period, signs are correct for the use, batteries are operating and all escape routes are illuminated correctly.