Description

Emergency lighting is a very important element of Means of Escape from fire and must be installed in accordance with the British Standard Specification BS 5266 : Part 1 : 1999 – Code of Practice for Emergency Lighting. It is important that it is installed by a trained engineer who is familiar with the British Standard.

There are basically two types of emergency lighting systems: Maintained and Non maintained. In maintained systems, individual luminaries each incorporate a battery that is charged from the mains lighting supply. For example, when the mains power is fully restored following an interruption, the luminaries emergency lighting battery is fully recharged from the mains power supply. In a non-maintained system individual luminaries incorporate a power back up supply independent of the mains supply. At present, maintained luminaries are only required in areas where the lighting is dimmed e.g. cinemas and theatres etc.