EMERGENCY LIGHTING SYSTEMS
Installing a fit-for-purpose emergency lighting system
In this ‘Q&A’-style article, Martin Green, Commercial Training and Support manager at Hochiki Europe, discusses some of the key questions that health estates and facilities teams, hospital building owners, and responsible persons within the healthcare sector, need to ask to ensure the safe and compliant installation of emergency lighting.
The questions I will ask and look to answer in this article do not form an exhaustive list, but will, I hope, cover some of the important aspects that electrical engineers, fire system installers, designers, and building contractors working in the healthcare sector should be aware of to ensure a safe and compliant life safety installation.
What is emergency lighting, and where is it required? Emergency lighting is lighting that automatically comes into operation when the mains power supply to the normal lighting fails, for example during a power cut in a hospital or other healthcare facility, or when a lighting circuit breaker has tripped. This specialist lighting is required wherever the public has access to a building, or where people are employed. The list of such locations is extensive, and includes premises such as healthcare and educational buildings, all communal areas of residential blocks – such as stairwells, corridors, and shared facilities, travel hubs such as railway stations, ferry ports and airport terminals, multi-storey car parks, leisure centres, pubs, theatres, shops, restaurants, offices, factories, warehouses, and even places of worship. Normally, a private dwelling within a house of multiple occupancy, or an individual home, where the general public do not have access, does not require emergency lighting.
What are the different types of emergency lighting? There are several types of emergency lighting available, and the way in which they are operated also differs. As a result, installing the right system for the particular healthcare setting’s unique circumstances is critical. n Maintained luminaires have a lamp/s which may operate in both mains- healthy and emergency lighting conditions. Such luminaires may be lit permanently or switched on/off (switch
The escape routes from a building must be clearly and unambiguously defined.
maintained). If a lamp is switched off, it will automatically come on in ‘emergency’ mode.
n Non-maintained luminaires only come on in the event of a power failure as an emergency light source. The continuous mains supply is used to charge the battery.
n Central battery systems are where the batteries for emergency lighting are situated at one or more remote locations in a building, supplying all applicable luminaires in the event of a power failure, whether they are maintained or non-maintained. All emergency luminaires will have a charge healthy LED indicator, which shows that the battery is being charged while there is a mains feed. When the power fails, the LED will switch off, and the lamp will be illuminated by the battery. The remote batteries traditionally have a longer design life, of 10 years. One of the biggest advantages of centralised systems is ease of access. Standalone luminaires can sometimes be found in hard-to- reach locations, so battery changing
would be expensive and require specialist equipment, e.g. scaffolding in high-level areas.
n Standalone luminaires are dedicated emergency lighting, with integral batteries, which can be ‘maintained’ or ‘non-maintained’. The latest designs using LED sources have light distributions to suit specific applications; escape route versions provide a long linear distribution, whereas anti-panic versions have a symmetrical distribution, and cover a wide area.
n Combined luminaires contain two or more sets of lamps, at least one of which is powered from the emergency lighting supply, and the other(s) from the normal mains power supply. A combined emergency lighting luminaire can be either maintained or non- maintained.
n Sustained emergency lighting describes a system where a lamp separate to the main lamp provides the emergency light source. This minimises any possibility of emergency lamp failure, as the ‘sustained’ lamp is only used in
September 2023 Health Estate Journal 59
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