The Importance of Automatic Emergency Light Testing
This is a guest blog from Stewart Langdown, Director of Business Development at zencontrol Group.
Stewart is a thought leader and often writes about topics relating to the lighting industry. He shares his opinion about the importance of emergency lighting maintenance and some of the current issues with the process. You can read more of Stewart’s blogs on his LinkedIn page.
Key points discussed in this blog:
Emergency lighting best practice
Why using original manufacturers parts when maintaining and repairing emergency lighting is vital
Value engineering must be stopped
Stewart Langdown
Director of Business Development at Zencontol Group.
Considered emergency lighting design, quality manufacturing, rigorous testing, and maintenance are vital.
We never question the need for fire alarm systems, and quite rightly so, but why do we not extend the same importance to emergency lighting? After all, a fire alarm ringing triggers the evacuation of a building as an alert system, but if you have poor or faulty emergency lighting, then way-finding is seriously impacted.
Professionalism in lighting is something that we accept when we talk about lighting design. Courses exist to promote good design, such as those run by trade organisations, professional bodies and Universities. In all cases, emergency lighting is a major factor in the curriculum.
Why, then, do we allow these schemes to be watered down through value engineering or by the removal of the test system, or worst-case scenario, replace an approved technology with an unknown or unproven product?
Not all emergency lighting is created equally, and for me, the greatest risk is to value engineer an emergency luminaire where the driver performance is unknown, the thermal capabilities are dubious, and the battery data is questionable. A friend of mine once stated that emergency lighting batteries all look the same and that one white battery stick looks very much like another; the harsh reality is they are not. If it’s a lower cost, then battery performance is often compromised as the thermal performance of cheaper cells are usually lower than an approved battery.
If the life of the battery is compromised, it may not achieve rated duration, and any battery change not using the original battery makes any approvals you have on that fitting or conversion null and void.
It is at your own risk to replace a manufacturer’s battery with an alternative without their approval. This does beg the question; how many emergency luminaires have had their batteries replaced with non-compliant batteries?
Testing and servicing emergency lighting ensures your systems work as designed and are maintained with original manufactures parts. In the same way as you maintain your fire alarms, you are ensuring your building is safe for your staff and visitors.
In summary, design a compliant scheme with a competent engineer and then stick to their design and avoid value engineering. If you do go down that route, then ensure a competent engineer signs off your design and should you decide to ignore their advice, then you must accept the risk is with you. Automatic testing is the only way to ensure compliance; manual testing is unproven and often simply not done.
