Qualifications for emergency lighting testing

[Guest EmilyPort]

Good afternoon,

I am just doing some research into emergency lighting testing. Please could you advise if the person who carries out the monthly testing needs to be qualified to do this?

Regards,

Emily

[Tom Sutton]

BS EN 50172:2004 BS 5266-8:2004 is the BS for servicing and testing emergency escape lighting and says,

"Regular servicing is essential. The occupier/owner of the premises shall appoint a competent person to supervise servicing of the system. This person shall be given sufficient authority to ensure the carrying out of any work necessary to maintain the system in correct operation."

You can interpret that to say the occupier/owner could train one of his employees to be a competent person and carry out the tests or they could bring in a competent person but I think if any work on the system is required then that would need a trained engineer to meet the electricity regulations.

[Safelincs]

Hi Emily

It might be helpful to separate between the testing and the service element of the maintenance regime. If an emergency lighting system has key switches integrated (with a 'fish key'), everybody is able to power switch the supply to the emergency lights off to see if they keep burning for the period required (usually 3 hours). The corrective actions might best be left to an electrician, though. The person doing the testing should have a minimum of understanding with regards when to do the tests and where to find all the emergency lights.

Harry

[Guest Simon]

I've been given the task of emergency light testing. However. I've told my manager that we have electricians on site to carry out this task as I'm not an electrician. And they would be best suited to identify and correct problems while doing there inspection 

[green-foam]

................and your question is?

[Guest Andrea]

We carry out regular flick tests on our emergency lighting (business) my question is do I need to also have this done annually by a qualified electrician also or can we do this in-house?

Thanks

 

[AnthonyB]

You don't have to be an electrician to do the 3 hour test, just competent and know what to do. Nothing in law says it has to be.