Does Your Office Comply With Emergency And Exit Lighting Law?- A Checklist

It can be a difficult task to implement safety requirements

, but ultimately worthwhile if an evacuation were ever needed from your building. By law, your office or place of work must have clearly marked emergency exits and exit lighting to facilitate evacuation in emergency situations. Your exit signs should be fully operational at all times. The laws surrounding these important safety features are sometimes difficult to implement, especially if the building is old. Follow this emergency lightinchecklist to keep your staff safe. Full details can be found in the Australian Standards document AS 2293.

Emergency lighting. Enclosed spaces must have emergency lighting that will operate should the normal electrical supply fail. This is especially true if your workplace is regularly used by the general public. This is a very important requirement and if you are unsure about whether or not your workplace complies, ask an electrical for advice.

Safety lighting. If you work anywhere other than ground level and you experience an emergency in your building cutting the power you will have to evacuate down the stairs. Building stairwells are generally entirely devoid of natural lighting, gaining most of their illumination from buzzing fluorescent lights. These lights will be out in an emergency. Therefore, safety lighting will need to be installed. Once again this will have to be connected to a different power supply and will need to comply with AS 2293. Safety lighting applies to egress routes, which is to say they must clearly show the way from anywhere in the building, through emergency (or regular) exits and to safety, meaning outside the building.

Number of exits. As a flimsy rule of thumb there should be two on each floor. This, however, is extremely dependant on the size of your building, the size of your floors, how many employees you have and how far your exits are from the street. Each exit must be free from obstruction and a clear path must be able to be made to it at all times.

Exit signs. Illuminated at all times, glaringly obvious in the dimness of a movie theatre or fancy restaurant, these rectangular green signs are familiar to us all. Exit lighting must be installed above each emergency exit without exception, even if you think the exit is blindingly obvious. Exit lighting must be installed in compliance with AS 2293. They should be visible at all times from anywhere (within reason) in the building.

Keeping your employees safe is part of being a good employer. If you feel that your workplace isn't in compliance with the law, its best to rectify the situation as soon as possible, otherwise you may be in the hot-seat, literally. Check out Australian Standards AS 2293 for more details or ask an electrical services company to assess your building, it may save your life and those around you.

by: Joshua Nicholls

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