Emergency Lighting

A fire that takes out the lighting circuit leaves an escape route no less necessary and considerably harder to use. Emergency lighting exists for exactly that case: it comes on automatically when the normal supply fails, and it stays on long enough for the building to be evacuated.

What it has to cover

Coverage follows the escape route rather than the floor plan — the route itself, changes of direction, stairs and level changes, exit doors, final exits, and the locations of fire alarm call points and fire-fighting equipment. Exit signage forms part of the same provision and needs to be legible under emergency conditions, not only under normal lighting.

Duration and testing

Systems are specified to maintain illumination for a defined duration after failure, and that duration is the whole point of the specification — a luminaire that operates for a few seconds satisfies nothing. Routine testing therefore checks not only that fittings illuminate but that they sustain it: brief monthly function tests, and a full-duration test annually, both recorded.

Failed fittings are common and easy to miss, because nothing about a building's normal appearance reveals them. The test record is the only practical evidence that the provision still works.