What is Emergency Lighting?
For those who are unaware, emergency lighting is a battery-backed lighting system that automatically switches on in the event of a power outage that leaves the usual mains lighting compromised. When it comes to evacuating a building, lighting is extremely important for ensuring that people can make a safe exit.
Is Emergency Lighting a Requirement for All Buildings?
Not always – if Emergency Lighting isn’t present in your communal parts then your regular Risk Assessment will review each time to see if the lack of Emergency Lighting creates a significant risk. If there is a need for it to be installed, then that same Risk Assessment should then make a recommendation accordingly.
Occasionally, ‘borrowed lighting’ from outside street lamps may be deemed sufficient for consistently illuminating the areas, especially in city centre locations. Consistency of this borrowed lighting should also be considered as many councils across the UK now switch their street lamps off after a certain time – if it cannot be guaranteed, then it should not be relied upon, because that vital lighting may could be missing at the point that it is needed the most.
What Should Property Managers Do?
Those responsible for managing an Emergency Lighting system should ensure that the activation test is completed monthly, the visual inspection of the LED’s are completed regularly (completed at your regular site inspections) and serviced annually with a full drain down test to ensure that the battery capacity remains sufficient. In addition to this, they should ensure that the emergency lighting for the block is not reliant on or affected by timer switches.
Despite their evident importance, such testing requirements can place a significant burden on Property and Facilities Mangers who don’t always have the time to visit their sites as regularly as they need to in order to complete them. With the right training however, using contractors who already regularly attend those properties (such as cleaners) is widely accepted as a way of ensuring the tests are completed as often as they need to be. Such third-party contractors will be able to check the Emergency Lighting LED’s, complete the activation test and fill out the inspection check sheets.
Sometimes engineered safety solutions, such as Emergency Lighting, work so well with such little impact on our everyday lives that it’s easy to either forget or underestimate just how vital they actually are. With that being said, however, there are some great technological solutions to managing testing requirements; one example would be self-testing emergency lighting systems which automatically check themselves, producing automated reports in order to ensure that the battery and lamp in each emergency light are fully operational.
What are the Legal and Financial Risks?
Even in a situation where nobody becomes injured, the Fire Enforcement authorities are there to catch the problems before they happen and make examples of those who have a blatant disregard for the safety of their residents.
For further advice and guidance, please get in touch with our team today.
