Whether it’s your staff, customers or suppliers, there’s every chance that people will be accessing your commercial property in the dark throughout the year, and that’s why it’s critical to ensure that your emergency lighting is tested and maintained.
Emergency lighting kicks in in the event of a power failure to ensure that access and egress areas are well lit and safe to navigate, and especially if people need to evacuate your building in an emergency. There are two common categories of emergency lighting: ’non maintained’ and ‘maintained’. The former is designed to switch on should a power cut or other emergency occur, while the latter is constantly illuminated and has a back-up battery to ensure its continued operation when the power is lost. The nature, design and layout of your commercial property and its surroundings will have determined the most appropriate installation, and it’s vital that whatever set-up you have in place is tested and maintained. We recommend that your emergency lighting is given a functional check on a monthly basis, but that it is fully tested every 12 months.
The monthly inspection should cover whether everything is functioning correctly once the power is turned off and whether there are any obvious signs of damage to the equipment. Key areas that we check during an annual emergency lighting test include ensuring that the emergency lighting’s full-rated duration is operating correctly. Emergency lighting should provide three hours’ continuous illumination in the absence of mains electricity, so it needs to be tested for the full three hours to ensure that it works correctly during the entire period.
As Mark Smith, owner of MS Electrical Services, explains, the timing of emergency lighting testing is important to check the overall effectiveness of the installation and to guarantee that there is minimal disruption to the client’s day-to-day business activities. 'At MS Electrical we offer a flexible service in order to carry out emergency lighting testing at the most convenient time for the client and ensure that we thoroughly check every aspect,' comments Mark. 'Should the client require it, we are able to work in the evenings and at weekends to avoid disrupting their regular operations.
'An example of this is the emergency lighting testing we carried out recently for Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge. As well as testing across the busy college campus, we also tested their offsite student accommodation to ensure that all their buildings were compliant in offering a safe environment for their students and staff. We achieved this without affecting the daily routines of the college and we’re delighted that everyone living, working and studying within Fitzwilliam can now move around the college and student accommodation safe in the knowledge that the emergency lighting functions perfectly should it be called upon.’
At MS Electrical we offer emergency lighting testing in Cambridge, so please contact us to request a no-obligation quotation.