Emergency Lighting Systems

In the event of power failure, emergency lights are designed to assist the safe evacuation of a property / building.

Careful consideration is required when it comes to the design of emergency lighting system as their sole purpose is to illuminate doors and escape routes.

Emergency Signage is also another method of highlighting the quickest escape route from a building and more often than note careful consideration is needed for both to ensure your building complies with the current building regulations, fire regulations and health and safety regulations.

An emergency light will always have minimum 2 sources of supply the primary source should always be mains and the secondary most commonly is either an internal battery pack to the fitting or a centrally located bank of batteries.

Emergency lighting should be checked and tested regularly by a competent person and a record of each test must also be recorded within an emergency lighting log book. HF can offer this service in the form of an emergency lighting maintenance and would include function testing and at least 1 yearly a full discharge test.

There are 3 different types of emergency lighting.

Maintained Emergency Lighting can stay on constantly if required. Depending on the make and style of fittings it could be part of your main source of lighting.

Non-Maintained Emergency Lighting cannot stay on constantly and will only activate in the event of mains failure, these are more commonly found on escape routes and emergency exits.

Sustained Emergency Lighting is when the emergency fittings throughout the premises have 2 sets of lamps. The 1st set of lamps are used as normal day to day lighting and the 2nd set are fed by a battery backup and will activate in the event of mains failure.