Developed for individuals and organisations responsible for the design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of emergency lighting systems, the pocket guide serves as a tool to make compliance with BS 5266-1 quicker and easier.
Bs 5266-1 Emergency Lighting Free Pdf Download
The BS 5266-1 Pocket Guide to Emergency Lighting helps system designers and installers to understand the importance of emergency lighting, the legislation surrounding it, and some of the solutions available to address the challenges they face. The guide also offers the most up-to-date, reliable information you need on lighting placement and lighting levels as well as addressing the criteria that need to be met around system design and light testing.
Matt Jones, Emergency Lighting Business Manager at Advanced, said: As a minimum, emergency lighting systems should comply with BS 5266-1. Our LuxIntelligent emergency lighting system already ensures all emergency lighting is functioning and compliant with the code of practice, and as part of our commitment to making things as simple and easy as possible for our customers, we have developed our BS 5266-1 pocket guide.
The BS 5266-1 Pocket Guide to Emergency Lighting is available as a hard-copy, or can be downloaded from here via PC, tablet or smartphone, ideal for those managing and maintaining lighting systems on the go. The guide is intended to aid designers and installers of emergency lighting systems and is not to be used as a substitute for BS 5266-1 which should be read in full.
Advanced offers a complete range of emergency lighting solutions, spearheaded by LuxIntelligent, the addressable, automatic emergency lighting system, that shows all emergency lights are compliant and functioning, with no engineer involvement required. Each panel can automatically test and monitor nearly 1,000 luminaires and can be easily networked to work with existing wiring and lights, keeping installation costs to a minimum. The system also offers optional cloud monitoring and system management via mobile and web apps.
However, there are two new developments: safety lighting and dynamic safety signage systems. Continued monitoring of the safety of premises has identified two main areas that emergency lighting can be useful.
(While a major need for emergency lighting is to assist occupants to leave the building in the case of fire it also has a safety benefit to protect the occupants when the normal lighting supply fails this includes reducing trip hazards and allowing the operation of safety critical duties).
FIA Trainer Ian Watts presented the above PowerPoint in 2018 at Lux Live to highlight the work being conducted by both manufacturers and standards committees. CEN 169 Working Group 3 have been tasked with looking into this technology, which supports safe emergency escape lighting with the interface from other systems such as BMS and fire equipment. This integration has been formally mentioned in the latest draft issued in January 2019 for BS 7273 part 6 and CEN 169 WG3 continue to discuss how the use of Dynamic Safety Signage Systems may create directional and negated messages for safe building occupation and evacuation.
For those that would like further information about the updates to emergency lighting, the FIA runs two courses: Emergency Lighting Foundation and Design, and Emergency Lighting Advanced Maintenance and Operation. Both courses are just a day each, and contain all the information you need relating to emergency lighting and BS 5266-1.
Emergency lighting is lighting for an emergency situation when the main power supply is cut and normal electrical illumination fails. The loss of mains electricity could be the result of a fire or a power cut. Without emergency lighting this could lead to sudden darkness and possible danger to occupants, either through physical danger or panic.
Emergency lighting is normally required to operate fully automatically and give illumination of a sufficiently high level to enable all occupants to evacuate the premises safely. Most new buildings have emergency lighting installed during construction; the design and type of equipment being specified by the architect in accordance with current Building Regulations and any local authority requirements.
The British Standard provides the emergency lighting designer with clear guidelines to work to. BS 5266-1 relates not only to hotels, clubs, hospitals, nursing homes, schools and colleges, licensed premises, offices, museums, shops but also multi-storey dwellings. Although the standard recommends the types and backup durations for each category of premises, it should be remembered that standards define a minimum requirement and that a higher specification may be required for a particular application.
The first stage of installing emergency escape lighting is consultation and design. The designer, responsible person and fire risk assessor should meet and decide where the escape lighting is required and mark up a plan showing the areas to be covered, the type (power supply), mode of operation, facilities and duration of emergency lighting to be provided in an emergency.
Maintained mode is generally used in places of assembly such as theatres, cinemas, clubs and halls; the full list is contained in BS 5266. The lights are typically dimmed when these premises are occupied and the emergency escape lighting prevents total darkness.
Non-maintained emergency luminaire: a luminaire whose emergency lamps only come on when the power supply to the normal lighting fails. Non-maintained is the typical mode in a workplace or similar environment in which artificial lighting is normally deployed while the premises are occupied.
Combined emergency luminaire: a luminaire containing two or more lamps, at least one of which is energized from the emergency lighting supply and the other(s) from the normal lighting supply. A combined emergency luminaire can be either maintained or non-maintained. These are also called switchable emergency lights.
C) Luminaire with inhibiting mode: a control mode used to inhibit the emergency lighting luminaire from operating, thus preventing the discharge of the emergency lighting batteries at times when the building is unoccupied. If a mains failure occurs at such a time, the batteries will remain fully charged so that the building can be occupied when required. It is performed by an inhibitor switch that must be interfaced with other building services so that the premises cannot be inadvertently occupied without the emergency lighting being recommissioned.
The time required to evacuate the premises depends on their size and complexity. The duration itself is dependent not only on evacuation time but also on whether the premises are evacuated immediately the power and normal lighting fails and are re-occupied immediately the supply is restored. The minimum duration of an emergency escape lighting system is 1 hour. That means that once the power supply fails, the luminaires must remain on for at least one hour.
A minimum duration of 3 hours should be used for emergency escape lighting if the premises are not evacuated immediately, as in the case of sleeping accommodation, for example, or if the premises will be reoccupied immediately the supply is restored without waiting for the batteries to be recharged.
Having decided on your basic system, consideration should now be given to the siting of the emergency lighting units and signs within the particular premises involved. This will then form the basis on which your selection of equipment can be made. Safelincs provides a graphical guide for the location of emergency lights.
Lighting units and signs should be sited so as to clearly show the exit routes leading to the final exits from the premises. Where the exit route or final exit is not readily identifiable, a sign should be utilised rather than a lighting unit. Particular attention should be paid to individual stairways, changes in floor level, corridor intersections, changes in direction, the outside of each final exit, control / plant rooms, lifts, toilet areas over 8m2 (although there is an argument for providing all toilets with public access, and especially those for the disabled, with emergency lighting). Access to fire alarm call points and fire fighting equipment should be clearly illuminated.
To test an emergency lighting system, a mains power failure on the normal lighting circuit / circuits or individual luminaries must be simulated. This will force the emergency lighting system to operate via the battery supply. This test can be carried out manually or automatically.
BS EN 50172 / BS 5266-8 (Emergency escape lighting systems) specify the minimum provision and testing of emergency lighting for different premises. Additional information on servicing can be found in BS 5266-1: (Code of practice for the emergency lighting of premises).
Because of the possibility of a failure of the normal lighting supply occurring shortly after a period of testing of the emergency lighting system or during the subsequent recharge period, all full duration tests shall, wherever possible, be undertaken just before a time of low risk to allow for battery recharge. Alternatively, suitable temporary arrangements shall be made until the batteries have been recharged.
This check only applies to emergency lighting systems with a central back-up battery system. In this case, there is a daily visual inspection of indicators on the central power supply to identify that the system is operational. No test of operation is required. This test does not apply to emergency lighting with self-contained back-up batteries in each unit (standard emergency lighting).
This part of BS 5266 gives recommendations and guidance on the factors that need to be taken into account in the design, installation and wiring of electrical emergency lighting systems, in order to provide the lighting performance needed for safety of people in the building in the event of failure of the supply to the normal lighting. 2ff7e9595c
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