Home safety precautions can range from essential to overkill, but it's not always clear where the line is. Most people agree that smoke alarms are essential for a home, but steel-shutter window covers are not.To decide if you need emergency lighting, you must first grasp what it does and why it's there.
What are Emergency Lights, and What are They For?
Key lighting is emergency lighting's main purpose. Fire escapes with LED "EXIT" signs are great emergency lighting examples. This light should remain on even when the building loses electricity so people can find the exit in the dark. Technically, the "EXIT" sign above a fire escape is needed by law for fire safety, regardless of emergency lighting, yet it is a good illustration of emergency lighting.
Emergency lighting includes low-power lighting that turns on when a structure loses electricity. This lighting will be much weaker than conventional lighting, but it will be independent of the power supply and give enough light to navigate. Underground buildings without natural light need this lighting because a power outage would leave the interior pitch black.
Emergency lighting is usually needed in buildings with vast open spaces, common areas (like a lobby in an apartment complex), or escape routes.
Do I Need Emergency Lights?
Our examples above all involved public buildings like residential blocks.
Emergency lighting standards vary by location, but any non-domestic structure must be safe for inhabitants at all times, including during a power outage. Public and commercial facilities need emergency lighting, but does your home?
UK household properties are not required to have emergency lighting. Unless structural, electrical, or gas repair is required, you can do what you want with your property. While the government requires a licensed electrician to repair your fuse box, you may still insert a fork in the socket! A torch or two around the house is usually enough for a typical residential property.
You do not need emergency lights in your home legally. No one is forcing you to install emergency lighting, but there are practical reasons why you should.
If you want to be extra cautious, place emergency lighting everywhere, but if you want to be safe, follow non-domestic building requirements. Any vast open spaces? Perhaps your ground floor is mostly open. Are there any rooms with no natural light and no egress, like a basement?
Consider your home as a non-domestic building and observe where emergency lighting might be needed. Naturally, you can install more or less than needed.
There's no government regulation, so you may play fast and loose with lights. EXIT signs in non-domestic buildings must be clear and easy to read. An emergency light in your home could be a standard EXIT sign, a colorful LED strip around the entrance, or anything else.
Where Should I Install?
The layout of a home determines emergency lights location. As mentioned above, emergency lighting is meant to illuminate vital work during a blackout, not replace regular lighting. Leaving the building is often the most important chore, but you decide what emergency lighting you need.
If you simply need enough lighting to leave your home, you only need to make sure there is enough. If you store long-term food, water, blankets, and other emergency supplies in one part of your home, you may want your emergency lighting to cover that area so you can get to it if the power goes out.
If you install emergency lighting, pay attention to staircases. In a power outage, your staircase might kill you. Lighting must illuminate the staircase so you can see each step.
The emergency lighting department should also pay more attention to tiny floor changes, such as a higher living room floor.
Other than that, enclosed corridors, basements, and other areas without windows are the key considerations. When the electricity goes out at night, locations with natural light sources will still be dark, but even the stars and moon provide some light, unlike an enclosed area with no windows, which will be completely black.
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