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Yes in Scotland the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 is relevant and in Northern Ireland the Fire and Rescue (NI) Order 2006 is applicable. Both of these documents cover the same principles as the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. You will observe that the principles and requirements for emergency lighting and the majority of other fire safety systems are similar to those in the documents for England and Wales.
The use of internally illuminated directional signs are preferred, even though externally illuminated signs are permitted. This is due to the internally illuminated sign being more prominent and why the viewing distances half when externally lit signs are used. When we use externally lit signs, a minimum of 100 lx should be provided during normal lighting and 5 lx during an emergency. (Refer to BS 5499-4 Clause 5.2, 5.3).
Yes BS 5266 has many references to other standards such as BSEN 1838,BSEN 50172 and BS 7671. A designer would need access to these standards.
This would come from the fire risk assessment. Such things as chemical processes and fuel or gas storage areas.
A standby generator may be used to back up usually safety services only but could back up the whole site. Generators have usually a 15 second start up time so may not meet a 5s time for emergency lighting.
There are a number of methods that can be used and this depends on the nature of the job, therefore there is no specific right or wrong way. If we look at Clause 8.3.3 of BS5266-1 (Test facility) it states, 'The test device should not interrupt power to any other electrical equipment that could cause a hazard'. In practice if the switch isolates all the lights on the circuit, you should have sufficient light from the emergency lighting, and this method ensures that the emergency lights are reinstated upon completion of the test, however the test would have to be undertaken at a suitable time, perhaps out of hours. If the switch only isolates the emergency lights of the associated circuit, the test could be done at most time intervals. However this method often results in the emergency lights being left off, therefore the batteries are fully discharged in the event of an emergency. (if latter method is used, its good practice to install a neon light to the key switch, to indicate its position. This method used to form part of the AM2 practical exam for electricians).
We have approached many manufacturers, and the general reasoning is cost vs performance. NiCAD batteries are currently one of the most cost-effective chemistries on the market and very robust. However there are pros and cons between each chemistry of battery used, so the manufacturer will select the correct battery for their product. It is important that during any maintenance regime, that the batteries are replaced using the correct type, in line with manufacturers' requirements.
To achieve the requirement a UPS would be fitted with dual source lighting see BS 7671 Section 710 and HTMI o6-01.
The designer is the design authority for the installation. If the contractor does not follow the design they would become the design authority and take on that liability and have to comply with the standards. There may also be contractual implications.
A good idea even without a fire strategy for the building. Anything you fit must comply with the relevant standards.
If we refer to BS EN 50172 Clause 7.2.3 (Monthly) the NOTE states 'The period of simulated failure should be sufficient for the purpose of this clause whilst minimising damage to the system components e.g. lamps'. We therefore need to check with the manufacturer of the luminaires to verify this, and in practice this value is around 15 mins, therefore not as the term flick test suggests. Its important that this time is sufficient for the particular site and luminaires fitted. We also have to consider if the building may be subjected to extended periods of power outages, than the luminaire is designed for (i.e. annual black building test), as deep discharge can permanently damage the batteries. Again consultation with the manufacturer would be required. BS5266-1 Clause 8.3.3 (Test facility) repeats this for clarity.
The emergency lighting standards including BS 5266-1 are guides to good practice for standardized applications, therefore a particular site may have a valid reason for deviating from the standards. We need to remember that compliance with the standards, will deem to comply with your legal obligations, therefore the reasoning must demonstrate that the safety of the building will not be impaired by this, and should be documented in the associated risk assessment. All relevant parties must be notified and the details must be recorded in the completion certificate.
Yes. Various organisations have additional requirements over and above British Standards which are the minimum standard for compliance.
We would say the council should appoint an RP for one or more of their buildings. They should be trained, assessed and competent to carry out their duties and provided with the authority and means to discharge their duties.
Yes but it's unusual. It would need to comply with the fire strategy for the building and British Standards.
The design and installation should meet the requirements for the fire strategy for the building. You cannot "pick and mix" standards for economic reasons. If you deviate from standards as the design authority you would have to declare and justify the deviation.
Yes a lot of standards are expensive but can be sourced from public libraries. They are "essential tools" for a design office and a business expense.
BS5266-1 states within Clause 8.2.6 (Segregation) The wiring of emergency lighting installations should be exclusive to the installation and separate from the wiring of any other circuits. This is in order to avoid the risk of mechanical damage to the emergency lighting cables. Where cables for emergency lighting circuits are installed in a common containment system such as trunking, ducting, cable basket or cable tray as you have suggested, this is fine, but they should not be shared with any other services unless they are segregated from each other by a partition meeting the requirements of this Clause (i.e. same base material as the common containment system, is rigid, mechanically strong, and continuous, without perforation and the same height as the sides of the common containment system).
Fire safety systems should be designed by those having competence in fire engineering, therefore a consultation process is required by all the relevant persons, for each service required.
The Health and Safety (safety signs and signals) Regulations 1996 gives guidance in their L64 document. They recommend that mixed formats should not be used, to minimise confusion. If you have more than one building with different formats (in the different buildings), I would seek advice from your health and safety advisor, or those responsible for undertaking the risk assessments onsite. The fire authority is the enforcing authority and in cases of doubt they should be consulted. One of the key differences between formats is the directional arrow, as the Europic format arrow has no meaning on the direction of travel (i.e. the arrow points down for routes straight ahead), whereas the ISO7010 format does (please refer to BS5499-4 for guidance).
Some may do. However an overvoltage strategy would be needed for the whole building.
BS 8519:2020 refers you to the recommendations of both BS9999 and BS9991 of which should be implemented, with regard to the design and installation of the electrical infrastructure for life safety and fire-fighting equipment. Three fire survival times are described in BS8519, in relation to the specific life safety and/or fire-fighting application. These are, Category 1 - 30 minute fire survival time, Category 2 - 60 minute fire survival time and Category 3 - 120 minute fire survival time. FP600 cable meets these requirements. We would always advise that you speak to the cable manufacturer on any fire engineering project, as their performances may differ between them.
Its not always possible or practical to locate the ATS Panel in the same room as the equipment its supplying, therefore to ensure we design the most resilient system, this should be located as close as possible. During the concept design, the location of equipment should form part of the design process.
All the cables supplying safety services must be fire resistant including control wiring.
If we refer to Clause 11 of BS 8519 it states 'The cables selected for life safety and fire-fighting systems should be either: a) fire-resistant cables meeting the minimum fire survival time categories for the appropriate application as shown in Table 1; or b) non-fire-resistant HV cables, having protection as described in Clause 12'. So assuming that you are talking about LV cabling, this would need to be fire rated. Its also worth looking at the note below this requirement that states 'The authorities having jurisdiction in the area of construction might specify a particular category to satisfy the requirements of the structure in its location'. This is often the case where the highest category is specified, to provide the highest level of integrity.
The correct selection of a generator is paramount, to ensure that the life safety load is suitably supplied and protected. It's important that general rule of thumb methods often adopted in other applications are not used, and manufacturers are consulted in all instances. Where a UPS system is used to ensure that a seamless supply is provided to the load, its important to recognise that generators typically do not like a highly capacitive load, therefore consultation between each manufacturer would be required to ensure we obtain compatibility between them.
The objective is that the primary and secondary supplies are separated from each other so that a failure in a cable or equipment, either by mechanical breakdown or damage by fire, in either supply does not affect the other supply. A fundamental principle of BS 8519 is that both the supplies should be protected against fire and water damage and separated from each other by adopting diverse cable routes.
If you refer to Clause 7 of BS 8519, it states, When designing diverse cable routes, account should be taken of any fire risks located within the area of the cable route. Where the diverse routes come together in the same area, they should be separated from each other by a partition with a fire resistance period of at least the fire survival time identified in Clause 5 for the appropriate system and type of building. Therefore no two buildings are the same, so the minimum distances should reflect the requirement above.
No you still need to provide short circuit and fault protection see BS 7671 Regulation 560.6.9 and for selectivity.
Yes, the resilience and integrity of the primary supply is just as important as the secondary. BS 8519 states, The primary and secondary power sources, electrical distribution board, cables and control equipment supplying power to the life safety and fire-fighting equipment should be protected against fire and water damage for a period of at least the fire survival time identified in Clause 5 for the appropriate system and type of building. This is often found to be missed during construction, as the design process has not been followed correctly. Please refer to BS 9999, BS 9991 and BS 9997.
It would depend on the fire strategy for the building. That would defined escape times and equipment survival times.
Unusual but the DNO would need to confirm compliance with BS 7671 Regulation 560.6.4.
Does the safety light standards specify the kind of light in manufacturing areas where flickering can cause serious injuries (ie. rotating machines like sawmills)?
Yes stroboscopic effect may lead to unsafe situations in workplaces using rotating machinery. If the frequency of rotating machinery coincides with the frequency (or multiples of the frequency of the light modulation) the machinery can appear to be stationary, therefore leading to a potentially hazardous situation. Historically because of the illusion that the stroboscopic effect can give to moving machinery, especially with the use of fluorescent lighting, it is advised that single-phase lighting is avoided. Modern LED lighting can also produce a flicker or stroboscopic effect, but the fact that it relies on a direct current to operate instead of an alternating current makes the chances of it happening less likely. In all instances the manufacturer would be able to advise on this, when designing all means of lighting, not just safety or emergency lighting schemes. This should be assessed within the risk assessment for the premise.
No unless you can clad the cables in fire rated enclosures to provide the fire separation, usually 2 hours.
The format of the logbook should be inline with BS EN 50172 (Clause 6.3 Log book [Reporting]). For a simple emergency lighting scheme such as this, it requires the same basic information as a complex system would.
This would include:
a) date of commissioning of the system including any certificate relating to alterations;
b) date of each periodic inspection and test;
c) date and brief details of each service, inspection or test carried out;
d) dates and brief details of any defects and of remedial action taken;
e) date and brief details of any alteration to the emergency lighting installation;
f) if any automatic testing device is employed, the main characteristic and the mode of operation of that device shall be described.
Please refer to BS5499-4 as this illustrates the signage in a very easy to understand format, with pictures and example layouts of premises.
Life safety equipment requires protection by surge protection devices and forms part of the risk assessment process. If you refer to BS EN 62305, during the risk assessment the reduction factor can only be ticked if there is surge protection fitted to the alarm circuit. Manufacturers also require these to be fitted to their products in most instances.
This would form part of the risk assessment process within BS EN 62305. No two buildings are alike, therefore a site assessment would be required. Please seek guidance from your LPS service provider.
Assuming the CBU is certified to BS EN 50171 and the correct batteries are fitted (10 year design life) then a monthly discharge of 45min should be fine (this should have formed part of the design, knowing the length of time it would have taken to test). Its imperative that the temperature of the batteries is maintained at 20 degrees for optimum performance, and that the manufacturers service schedules are maintained (Generally 6 monthly). In higher risk installation such as airports, it is recommended that a battery monitoring system is installed (with ohmic measurements) to continually check the performance of each cell, if this function is not part of the CBU itself.
The British Standards in particular BS 5266-1 2016, have been written in a concise way, so they are easy to understand and cross reference.
The IET offer a number of guidance documents in a digital format, which are easy to navigate from a PC, tablet or mobile phone. Most Standards are available to view from numerous bodies online (including some local libraries) in PDF format which again can be used on most mobile devices.
Smoke detectors are a safety service so require SPDs see BS 7671 Regulation 443.4 (i). The CRL cannot negate this, it a "shall". See DPC requirement.
The owner of the building, the person in control of the premise or the employer. The RP is a person by default, and generally not appointed. Please refer to the RRO 2005, which is free to download from the government website.
If you refer to the RRO 2005 Article 18 Safety assistance - (5) A person is to be regarded as competent for the purposes of this article where he has sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities to enable him properly to assist in undertaking the preventive and protective measures. Qualifications alone do not make someone competent. Demonstrating competence and ongoing commitment to keeping competence up to date can be achieved through Professional Registration. See details on the IET's Electrician EngTech award.
Following the initial design and handover, the emergency lighting system should be periodically inspected and tested in-line with BS 5266-1 and BS EN 50172. Clause 6.2. of BS EN 50172 states, on completion of a yearly inspection and test schedule as required in the periodic inspection, a test certificate should be supplied to the person responsible for the premises. If the competent person undertaking the inspection and testing highlights any concerns or deviations, then re-validation of the system should be undertaken (i.e. verification of existing system). This is to ensure the system design is still valid, as certain aspects of the building may have changed. The fire risk assessment should be continuously updated to reflect any changes in risk to the premises and should be repeated on a regular basis, typically every 12 months. When undertaking a modification/alteration to an existing system, or a periodic or verification report, if the original design is not available this needs to be recorded as a deviation. Annex D(informative) of BS 5266-1 explains the procedure for measuring illuminance of emergency lighting, which highlights that measurement can be very difficult and needs to be carried out with good instrumentation and great care. Obtaining authenticated photometric data and spacing tables is encouraged in these instances, as it would provide accurate values, as these take into account worst case data.(eg no reflectance).
It would depend on the fire strategy for the building derived from the Fire Risk Assessment. But usually no, a second source of supply is needed.
It would depend on the fire strategy for the building and the escape plan.
Advice should be sought from the Rail Regulator. We would say any building cannot be occupied with a discharged EL system as there would be no escape lighting until the batteries are charged.
The use of internally illuminated directional signs are preferred, even though externally illuminated signs are permitted. This is due to the internally illuminated sign being more prominent and why the viewing distances half when externally lit signs are used. When we use externally lit signs, a minimum of 100 lx should be provided during normal lighting and 5 lx during an emergency. (Refer to BS 5499-4 Clause 5.2, 5.3). This is particularly important to identify emergency escape routes that would not normally be used, with people familiar with the location. It also worth confirming requirements highlighted in the fire risk assessment, fire strategy, local authority requirements and any requirements that the building may have in place. (typically buildings open for entertainment or places of education may stipulate internally illuminated signs).
Yes. The escape plan should be derived from the Fire Risk Assessment.
This will depend on the fire pump control panel. A selectivity study should prove that downstream fuses will operate 1st leaving the second pump to change over to a healthy supply.
Any requirement would be defined in the fire strategy for the building derived from a fire risk assessment.
The default Responsible Person under the RRO 2005 (Article 1 Meaning of “responsible person” (3)) would be the owner of the building, the employer or the person in control of the premises. Covering letter on file kept by contractor describing the handover just in case!
A common problem. You cannot do the design without a fire strategy. The owner of the building or project or person appointed by them, a Fire Engineer.
How the lift reacts to a fire alarm should be defined in the fire strategy for the building. It would be reckless for the lift to home to a floor where there is a fire.
Yes unfortunately that is the case. The decision maker should be made aware of the possible consequences of his/her decision and a record kept for possible future enforcement action or investigation purposes.
Training courses are available from a number of training providers. The selected person should be trained to discharge their duties.
For fixed wiring compare the installation to the current edition of BS 7671 and record any non-compliances. For EL there is a question on the periodic report "is the design still valid".