Tips To Help Ensure Your Emergency Lighting System Functions Correctly

The interior of your building requires a complex system of lighting to ensure that everyone inside is able to clearly see. Unfortunately, power outages and disasters can strike, and it is important for you to ensure that people inside the building are able to see well enough to safely exit the building. To this end, emergency lighting can be an excellent option, but if you are not familiar with these systems, you may benefit from following these couple of tips to ensure that these lights activate when you need them the most:

Create An Emergency Lighting Test Schedule

Ideally, you would want to perform a comprehensive test on this lighting system at least once a month to ensure that it is working properly, and you will want to thoroughly document this testing because if someone is injured you may not be liable if you can prove you were taken reasonable precautions. When you are doing this inspection, turn off every light in the building and activate the emergency lights. Walk through the entire building and mark down any lights that are not functioning correctly. 

Often, these lights may be malfunctioning due to dust accumulations or loose connections. After you have turned the lights back on, dust and check the connections on any lights that were not functioning correctly. If these steps fail to fix the problem, you should contact a professional electrician to determine the source of the problem. 

Ensure Each Light Is Protected From Power Surges

Many building owners fail to appreciate the threat that power surges can pose to their emergency lighting systems. However, an electrical surge can destroy these systems because while they operate on batteries, they are still connected to your building's power grid. 

To ensure that a lightning strike or some other power surge does not destroy this lighting system, you will need to either install a whole building surge suppression system or install these devices for each emergency light. While this may seem like an unnecessary expense given the low likelihood of a power surge occurring, the liability concerns make this investment more than worth it. If the lights in the building go out and your lighting system fails to work, you may be liable for any injuries that occur as people exit the building. 

Installing an emergency lighting system is an important step for ensuring the safety of those inside your structure. By following the tips of testing your system at least once a month and protecting the lights from power surges, you should find yourself in a stronger position to ensure that power failures do not pose a risk to those inside your building.

Contact a company such as A-1 Fire Protection LLC to learn more.