Emergency Lighting
Emergency Lighting - Three Forms of Testing
For commercial spaces emergency lighting is critical for safety as it guides occupants to exits during a power outage or emergency, preventing injury, panic and confusion. It provides a safe, illuminated path for evacuation, supports rescue efforts by giving emergency personnel visibility.
Key switch Testing / Manual Testing
Fittings are provided with a battery back up and are tested manually. This is labour intensive with high ongoing costs.
Self Test Emergencies
Self-test emergency lighting automatically performs monthly functional tests and annual full discharge tests to ensure its readiness for power failures, replacing the need for time-consuming manual checks. These lights use built-in indicators, such as coloured LEDs, to signal a green light for normal operation and a red light (or flashing sequence) to indicate a battery, lamp, or charging fault, allowing building managers to quickly identify and rectify issues. The fittings are not part of a system and will work independently. This means that personnel will still need to visually check all emergency luminaires periodically to look for status LEDs on the luminaires to see if they are healthy or need attention.
Addressable Emergency Systems (Auto Systems)
Addressable test emergency lighting systems automatically performs tests according to BS 5266 & BS EN 50172. The system will automatically perform function and duration tests and display the findings via a comprehensive emergency test log. The emergency test log will provide full details of fixtures whether they have passed or failed. If they have failed full details will be provided of why the fitting has failed and what rectification works are required.
What to look for in an addressable emergency system
The best emergency systems offer:
1. Ease of use – Simple graphical display to show the status of emergency fittings and an protentional attention that is required in real time
2. Automatic reporting of failed devices or components
3. Compliance testing carried out automatically via preassigned calendar events. Reduces the requirement to pay for labour to put fittings into test
4. Warranty that covers all parts of the system. Often batteries are excluded or limited from the system warranty. Our suppliers offer 12 year warranty on batteries
5. Ongoing Support
If you are looking at an emergency system that doesn’t provide all of the above please contact us
Clarendon Design