Lighting Services Blog

Emergency lighting fixtures are ever-present in public and business buildings throughout the country, so omnipresent that we often forget they are there at all -- until the moment we need them.

Every business, no matter how big or small, comes with a surprisingly long list of maintenance responsibilities. Just keeping the facility properly swept, mopped, and wiped down with a sanitizing cleaner takes enough effort as-is. Almost no team manages to keep up with every corner of the building, especially in areas where it's not fun to be. From cleaning the break room microwave to wiping down handrails, there are a number of facility upkeep tasks that need to be maintained, and maintaining the building lighting is one of these little tasks that all too often falls through the cracks.

According to safety regulations, your commercial building is required to have emergency exit lights indicating both emergency exit doors and the path to emergency exits if the route is not apparent. But installing your exit lights correctly is about more than just placement. Emergency exit lights need to function properly and safely even in situations where all other lights in the building fail. 

This is why most emergency exit lights are connected to a backup battery source that will last at least a few hours after power fails or is cut off in the building. Beyond power source, you should also think carefully about the materials used to build your emergency exit lights and the bulbs that illuminate the signs so that people in dangerous situations can clearly navigate their way to safety.

Building safety regulations require that every commercial facility be fitted with a minimum number of lit emergency exit signs. Anywhere the closest fire escape route is not immediately evident must have a visibly lit exit sign with an arrow pointing in the correct direction. Exterior doors must be marked with a similar exit sign, letting everyone know which door leads them to the safe outdoor areas. However, you have no reason to stop at the bare minimum of what the fire marshal demands.

Facility safety is a crucial part of any maintenance plan. No doubt your regular facility maintenance team is capably keeping the walkways clear, the handrails secured, and the HVAC system running smoothly. But in the yearly hustle and routine, it can be all too easy to lose sight of seasonal safety concerns. As the weather begins to turn cold, outdoor safety becomes a particularly serious matter for any commercial facility. Particularly those that serve a large number of customers or clients each day. 

Winter Slip and Fall Risks    

Winter time and the pavement ice it brings are the number one cause of both employee and customer slip-and-fall accidents. Whether someone is stepping out of their car, walking across the parking lot, or taking the few short steps up to your front door, a single misstep could lead to a serious injury. Businesses should be doing everything they can to reduce the chances that someone could get hurt on their sidewalks, grounds, and parking lot pavements. 

Successful businesses are always looking for ways to increase long-term profits with low-cost investments.

Emergency exit lights are fixtures in most modern buildings. They are familiar enough that we may take them for granted despite their essential role. What may be less familiar to some is the fact that these lights must undergo regular inspections. Building managers should be aware of the fact that these lights are installed to make fast egress possible in emergencies. How well they function can literally make the difference between life and death for a building's occupants. If you manage a building, you should understand the laws that govern emergency and exit light inspections. 

Emergency and Exit Lighting Regulations 

The National Fire Protection Administration (NFPA) is one of the organizations that govern emergency and exit lighting. You can find the various rules on emergency and exit lights in the NFPA's Life Safety Code. The most important of these rules dictate factors like: 

• The placement of emergency and exit lighting. The NFPA's rules specify the location of signs and how floors should be illuminated. No point in an exit access area should be beyond 100 feet or the sign's rated viewing distance, whichever distance is less. 
• The amount of emergency illumination. Emergency lighting should not be less than one lumen per square foot. At no point should maximum illumination at any one point exceed 40 times the minimum illumination. The point of this is to prevent overly bright and overly dark areas.  
• How long emergency lights should last in an emergency. The NFPA states that emergency illumination should not last for less than 1.5 hours on full battery power in the event that normal lighting fails. 
• The schedule for inspecting emergency and exit lighting. You should inspect emergency and exit lights every month. The NFPA's code also specifies that the monthly functionality tests of emergency and exit lights should last for 30 seconds. They also advise that building managers keep written records of monthly inspections. These records are important since the local authority having jurisdiction may require them. No more than five weeks should pass between monthly inspections. Along with the 30-second tests, building owners and managers should test emergency and exit lights once per year for 1.5 hours. 

Fire safety is one of the biggest reasons that building codes mandate emergency exit lights, but it isn't the only reason to have these fixtures. In fact, fire is thankfully rare in buildings that comply with local building codes. This makes it so that emergency exit lights are usually activated in other situations. Here are some of the most common ones:

    Big businesses are always on the lookout for a good way to benefit their company, but they sometimes focus on the inside of their buildings to find them excluding the exterior. This is a problem when it comes to regular light maintenance and replacement. It skips the following advantages. 

Serious Money And Energy Savings  

    It's always a good time to think about replacing your current exterior lights. It can save you a lot of energy and money if you have old MH lights which can use up to 324 watts in your parking lot. Replacing just half of them with LED lights can cut your exterior's energy expenditure by up to 70%. You can imagine how much your electricity bill can drop after that considering that the US Energy Information Administration reports that the national average spent on electricity is 13.05 cents per kilowatt-hour. 

     Even if you don't replace your exterior and parking lot lighting with LEDs, keeping them maintained and regularly replaced reduces how much light is consumed and how efficiently that energy is used. Lights lose their oomph as they age, illuminating less over time. This is a waste of money since they consume energy at the same rate, but you can develop a schedule of replacing bulbs before they dim to keep their efficiency.

Interior and exterior lighting are more than simply lighting a path for people to find the building or their path while inside. Lighting is also in place for emergencies as well as to adhere to fire code.