Emergency lighting testing requirements, and the annual test I carry out.

What the law says about emergency lighting

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 says escape routes and exits which need lighting must have emergency lighting of adequate brightness for when the normal lighting fails. It covers nearly every building that is not a private home in England and Wales, including shops, offices, guesthouses and holiday lets.

The same order makes the responsible person keep that equipment maintained in efficient working order and good repair. The responsible person is the employer, or whoever controls the premises, and in a shared building there can be more than one.

Where the lights go is decided by the fire risk assessment, which the responsible person has to carry out and keep up to date.

The fire and rescue service enforces the order, and its inspectors can come in and ask what you have done about it.

Where emergency lights are needed

The government's fire safety guide for offices and shops lists the places a system should normally cover.

• each exit door and escape route
• corridor junctions, and the outside of each final exit
• every flight of stairs
• changes in floor level
• larger windowless rooms, and toilets
• fire alarm call points and extinguishers
• lifts
• equipment that has to be shut down in an emergency
• the exit signs themselves

Maintained and non-maintained fittings

A maintained fitting is lit all the time and carries on when the mains goes off. A non-maintained one stays dark until the normal lighting fails.

Either kind can run from a battery inside the fitting or from a central battery or generator. Each has a rated duration, the time it is built to stay lit without mains, and that figure is what the annual test proves.

Exit signs work the same way. A sign that stays lit all the time is a maintained fitting, and it gets the same annual test as the lights around it.

Small shops may manage with a few self-contained fittings, each carrying its own battery. A bigger or more complicated building, especially one with a basement or a lot of staff and public, is more likely to need a central system.

The checks through the year

The government's guide for offices and shops asks for a monthly function test and an annual full-duration test, and calls it good practice to write each one down.

The routine check is a short function test, and it's yours to do. Most systems have a test switch, often a small key switch known as a fishtail, that cuts the mains to the lights for long enough to see every lamp come on.

Where there is a central control panel, glance at it every day. Some newer systems test themselves and log the results.

If a lamp stays dark during the function test, write down which one and get it seen to. One dead fitting can leave a stretch of corridor or a turn in the stairs without light.

Keep a logbook of every test, what failed and what was done about it, because that's what an inspector will ask to see.

What happens on the annual test

I run every fitting on battery for its full rated duration and check that each one is still lit at the end. Then the mains goes back on and I make sure every fitting is charging again.

A standard job covers one site with up to 10 fittings. My logbook entry records the date, the fittings tested and how each one did, and a certificate goes with it.

A drained battery takes many hours to charge back up, and the guide says the building should not be relied on until the system is working again. If people sleep there, pick a time when they can be put up somewhere else until it has recharged.

When a fitting fails, the certificate says which one and whether it's the battery or the fitting itself. Replacing it is priced before I touch it.

When the building changes

Moving a wall, splitting a room or opening up a new part of the building can leave an escape route without enough light. The fire safety order wants the risk assessment looked at again after a significant change, and the lighting should follow what it says.

Fire alarms and other premises

A fire alarm's yearly inspection and test can be done on the same visit as the lighting, each with its own certificate.

Guesthouses and B&Bs with only a few rooms have a government guide of their own, which expects escape lighting on stairs and landings in all but the very smallest places.

On a holiday park, the shower block and the clubhouse are buildings like any other under fire safety law, and their escape routes are lit and tested in the same way.

A condition report on the building doesn't run the lights on battery, so the two are separate jobs with separate prices.