Mattalex Emergency Lighting Limited (MELL)
13 The Quadrangle
Grove Technology Park
 Downsview Road
Wantage
Oxfordshire
OX12 9FA
UK

Testing

    The system should include adequate facilities for testing the system condition. These need to be appropriate for the specific site and should be considered as part of the system design. Discussions with the user or system designer should identify:
  • The caliber and reliability of staff available to do the testing
  • The level of difficulty in performing the test
  • Discharge tests need to be done outside normal working hours. In buildings that are permanently occupied the test should be phased so only alternate luminaires are tested.

The testing requirements are:

Function test

  • All emergency luminaires should be tested be breaking the supply to them and checking that they operate satisfactorily.
  • The supply must then be restored and the charging indicators must be seen to be operating correctly. This test must be performed at least once per month.

Discharge test

  • The luminaires must be tested for their full rated duration period and checked for satisfactory operation. The supply must then be restored and the charging indicators rechecked. This test must be performed at least annually.

Manual Testing

If manual testing is utilised, the following points should be considered:

  • Is a single switch to be used? Unless the whole building is to be switched off, a separate switch should be used for each circuit. As the feed to non-maintained circuits must be taken from the switch this will probably mean that the building will have to be walked around twice, once to check the luminaires and once to check that they are recharging.
  • Are luminaires to be individually switched? In practice, only a single walk around the building will be needed. However, the test switches could spoil the decor of the building and they must be of a type that is tamper proof.

After the tests it is recommended that the performance of the luminaires should be logged.

Automatic Testing

If the costs of an engineer time and the disruption caused by manual testing are excessive, automatic systems should be considered. Different formats are available to match particular site requirements.