Emergency Exit Signs

[nickb12345]

I am expecting the response to this to be something along the lines of check your PEL or ask local council but thought the wonderful world of the blue room might be able to shed some light (pun intended) on the matter!

 

I have had a few people lately asking me questions about fire exit signs. Now I'm not qualified to be installing/testing/specing them or anything like that but just thought I should find out the basics.

 

Spent a while looking on HSE website and googling but cant find much.

 

Anyway... what I would like to know is in a dark environment (but not total blackout) ie in an auditorium or similar would signs on fire escapes need to be illuminated constantly (while the area is in use) or can they be lit with the battery types which kick in when the supply dies, or do they even need to be lit - are the signs alone good enough?

 

Also another similar point, if they do need to be lit how bright should they be? My old college theatre has lights above all escapes, however the foh ones are very bright (compared with the stage ones which you can only really see in a blackout anyway). Also the ones in places like the cinema never seem very bright and all look very small!

 

Any advice / information would be appreciated. Or even suggestions as to where I can find more info.

 

As I said above I'm not after anything concrete, just some basic info. Before any information is put to use it will be checked with the correct people!

 

Regards

 

Nick

[Bryson]

Buy the Yellow and Green books...they'll have most answers of this kind in, as a guide, at the very least. They're at work at the moment, but the terms you're looking for are:

"maintained" or "non-maintained" exit lights. Maintained are lit at all times. Non maintained come on when the power fails. It doesn't have any thing to do with actual maintenance! (Rather obviously, all exit lights should be maintained in the casual meaning of the word.) Further answers tomorrow, when I grab my copy of said books.

[Jivemaster]

Cinema regs were different from theatre regs, cinema using the illuminated letters and theatre usong an illuminated background. The only definitive answer for your location will come from the licensing authority with input from the fire officer, on viewing the site.

[lonfire]

hi,

I met with a fire officer the other day and he said that for us we would need maintained signs if we were going to sell alcohol onsite and non-maintained ones otherwise..

 

not sure if thats standard or not.. he did say it all depenned on natural light into the venue and such like..

 

rgds

chris

[esp-protocol]

Look up BS 5266-1:1999 which directs you to EN 1838: 1999 !

 

Licensing authorities generally have their own views but essentially signs that are provided at all exits intended to be used in an emergency need to be illuminated (not necessarily internally). - The question is whether they should be illuminated permanently (maintained) or simply when the power fails (non-maintained).

 

From a risk point of view, as a member of the public in a strange dark auditorium, I would prefer to have the signs permanently illuminated so I knew where they were rather than rely on them lighting up in an emergency.

[landy]

Also another similar point, if they do need to be lit how bright should they be? My old college theatre has lights above all escapes, however the foh ones are very bright (compared with the stage ones which you can only really see in a blackout anyway).

 

I am certain there is a defined minimum brightness that the signs should be and thing I read a case (on BR even) where the signs were dimmed to aide black out by use of Neutral Density and a licencing officer.

[robloxley]

Also some emergency exit signs just have the running-man logo illuminated, whilst others give out light from the bottom to light a doorway and seem to spill considerably more.

[Modge]

Also some emergency exit signs just have the running-man logo illuminated, whilst others give out light from the bottom to light a doorway and seem to spill considerably more.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

In fact these spill a truly horrific amount in a small venue, making your black outs into vaguely dim outs.

[AC03]

what we do at our venue, is to keep the signs illuminated but have blue gel over the sign, so the light is still there and can be recognized but, don't disturb black outs and such...

[dbuckley]

We're having our own fun in our community cinema re exit lights,

they are the old ones with green lettering on white perspex, we've not gow the bulb watting down from 40W(!) to 7W. Thats some improvement...

 

Anyway, apparently the reason these things are green not red like they used to be was due to some kinds of common colour-blindness prevent you from seeing red lettering on a white background, so if you've got green writing on a blue background I wonder if a similar problem would arise?

[paulears]

and red is the international colour for STOP, where as green is GO.

[Andrew C]

We're having our own fun in our community cinema re exit lights, 

they are the old ones with green lettering on white perspex, we've not gow the bulb watting down from 40W(!) to 7W.  Thats some improvement...

 

Anyway, apparently the reason these things are green not red like they used to be was due to some kinds of common colour-blindness prevent you from seeing red lettering on a white background, so if you've got green writing on a blue background I wonder if a similar problem would arise?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

For a start, is it not a legal requirement for signs to be white on green? Or do you have some special dispensation?

 

The change from red/white was part of another harmonization scheme, and in the early 80s the decision to go for white on green was made. It wasn't easy to get guidance as to which was going to win. After discussion with my local BCO, I specified a factory full of green on white, only for them to order it changed 3 months later. :blink:

As to using a blue gel, it will take you out of spec; using a ND filter won't change the colour, but may bring the level to an acceptable (and legal) level.

 

You should talk to the licencing officer, bearing in mind that cinema is not synonymous with theatre in this context.

[Russ]

I've seen quite a few blue-on-green emergency exit signs in venues recently (what appeared to be proper ones, and not just standard signs with a gel stuck on them), I'm not sure what the score is with them, but they looked quite a lot better.

[Bryson]

Just for a little feline/avian insertion:

 

Who decides what "white" is anyway? I've found that a bit of 201 on an exit sign makes it less prominent, while still being arguably white.

[pete LD]

regarding gelling exit lights I have seen orange gel over lights in a west end theatre, is this type of activerty just not noticed by the local fire officer or is it removed when he visits? I am having a nightmare with the fire officer at the min when he found out I had dampened the light with a bit of primary green but left enough white so it wasn't noticable but a builder found it after 3 years!

so is the ND stuff better and how many stops should I use?

any help would be good

pete