lamp. He may well, but can you be 100% certain? Also, who will be called upon to replace it when it invariably fails? Is it more likely to be someone who doesn’t know the difference between aluminium and dichroic lamps? This invariably raises the issue of liability.

You can say that you specified the correct fire rated downlight with the correct lamp. You did your job. But is that enough? Should you have provided further sufficient documentation or warnings to ensure that no-one fitted a dichroic lamp to the unit in future? Should you have sufficiently ensured it would not be possible for such a mistake to be made? There is a simple way of avoiding the entire

problem, and that is to always fit regular downlights with properly tested and approved fire hoods.

“Full protection is in place, and you put it there”

Safety First

D

ownlights are big business these days, but they come with an inherent problem: installing them means cutting a hole in a fire rated ceiling, thereby

compromising its fire rating. ‘All in one’ fire rated downlights, which were claimed to restore the integrity of the ceiling and cut costs, seemed like an ideal solution, but now serious problems with the idea have begun to become apparent and untold numbers of these fire-rated downlight applications may actually be a fire risk waiting to happen… The problem is that, all too often,

when the original aluminium-reflector lamp fails, it is replaced with a far more commonly available dichroic lamp, with potentially very dangerous consequences. Aluminium lamps push their heat forward,

away from the light fitting, while dichroic lamps permit heat to escape through the back of the reflector. The result is that many dichroic lamps accidentally installed in fire rated downlights are heating downlights beyond their thermal ratings. In other words, they’re overheating and creating a potentially critical fire risk.

“Concern about the fire safety of fire rated downlights”

There have been rumblings of concern about

fire rated downlights, in the fire safety industry in particular, for some time, but it took the Managing Director of JCC, David Dawkins,

45

With Firecap Fitting a separate fire hood means that you

don’t have to worry about what type of lamp is used or installed in the future, or even if the fitting itself is removed completely or even changed for a standard feature. Full protection is in place, and you put it there. Customers need to be aware of the dangers

Fire rated downlights; who’s to blame when they go wrong? By Neil Perdell, National Technical Manager, Aico Ltd.

to really bring the problem to the attention of other industries and to call for action. He said: “The Building Regulations and the laws of physics rarely meet. What we’ve ended up with is a can with an aluminium reflector MR16 with a 380°C pinch temperature. When the lamp fails, and it often does after about 500 hours, it’s not replaced with a cool fit lamp.” When you specify a fire-rated downlight, you may assume the installer will fit the correct

inherent in all-in-one downlights and to be offered the safer fire hood solution, both for domestic and commercial installations. With issues of liability hanging in the air they should readily grasp the overheating danger that comes with being unable to guarantee who works on the lights in the future (particularly in domestic applications). Unless you can be 100% certain that you will

always be there when lamps, or indeed fittings, are changed, specifying regular downlights and using fire hoods to cover the safety aspect is the very best way to avoid liability should something go wrong. With fire hoods you and your customers are always protected, in every sense of the word.

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