Emergency lighting

Soldato
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In my office stairway (the office is the size of a small terrace house basically) there are 2 emergency bulk head lights that are always on however I thought that emergency lighting should only come in when there was a power cut. Can anyone advise or point me in the direction of what the regs say?
 

RJC

RJC

Don
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These are maintained lighting and will automatically swap to battery in event of power failure.

I think its down to site if they want maintained or Non-maintained lighting, the site I was on all the lighting was maintained.

Belongs they do regular tests all should be ok.
 
Soldato
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Interesting, seems a bit of a waste of electricity being on 24/7. Is there any options to change them so they only come on when the power is cut? Alternatively is worth switching them to LED bulkheads?

Edit - RJC posted while I was replying. I'll have a look into the differences between maintained and non-maintained thanks.
 
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Normally the bulkhead lights that are permanently illuminated are emergency exit sign lights. These will normally have a 'runnning man' symbol on them. In the even of power failure they will revert to their batteries. There is normally no other reason to have permanently illuminated emergency lights in a 'normal' environment unless it is a windowless corridor that is part of a primary escape route. I would guess that this is the reason. It is probably also a safe harbour.
 
Soldato
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They are just the standard bulk heads, no running men or women! The whole layout is open plan so usually really bright and when it gets dark it gets illuminated with the street lights from outside as the whole front of the building is glass/ Think I'll look to change them to non-maintained ones.
 
Soldato
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Thanks. As the owner of the building I of course have those documents in place. If say someone reading this didn’t have said documents in place could you suggest a good place to start to look to draft those documents?
 
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If somebody didn’t have those documents in place I would point them to somewhere like the Institute of Fire Engineers https://www.ife.org.uk/

Directory to find a consultant who could help them prepare a Fire Risk Assessment and a Fire Strategy for their building. I would also remind them that a FRA is a living document and should be reviewed annually or when substantial changes have been made to the building.

I would also suggest that they ask the Fire Engineer about Fire Alarms, and the need to test it on a weekly and annual basis and record those tests. Similarly I would advise them to ask about emergency lighting coverage and testing. Finally I would also ask about the need to undertake Fire Evacuation Drills to ensure that everybody can leave the building safely.
Building owners have a Legal Duty to protect its occupants. The above advice would go a long way towards ensuring that safety.
 
Soldato
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Thanks for the info Simon, I’m sire someone will find it very useful.

Does the size of the building in question affect things? I know health and safety is relaxed if you have less than 5 members of staff.
 
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Thanks for the info Simon, I’m sire someone will find it very useful.

Does the size of the building in question affect things? I know health and safety is relaxed if you have less than 5 members of staff.

This annoys me a little, health and safety is never relaxed its just as SimonR said you dont have to have physically recorded risk assessment or health and safety policies but you still have to complete it so why would people not have copies? Its a stupid situation that needs sorting out really, I mean if would help you defend a claim against if you could you it to prove you did it!

I would suggest if someone needs a Fire Risk assessment completing for a building and they didnt have one I would engage the services of a health and safety professional while I was at it because people dont know what they dont know. There will be potentially loads of other stuff that will potentially need looking at especially if its a work place. Legionnaire disease control for example, COSHH, there will also be things that have you a legal obligation to ensure are maintained, things like any lifts, fire alarms. The consequences of not acting can be fairly severe, G4S were recently fined 1.8million because of improper Legionnaire's disease control and you of course have the old corporate manslaughter charge should anything bad happen. Ignorance to accountability is not a defense in court.
 
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I think the important thing for small businesses is that they understand their obligations and they go through the risk assessment process. It is a lot of work to write and maintain all of the policies and risk assessments and can be overwhelming. Having been a H&S practioner for over20 years and running my own AV install business I understand the challenges for a small business.
 
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