Emergency and Exit Lighting

Emergency lighting is the one part of a lighting package that gets inspected by somebody whose job is to fail it. Everything else on the job can be a judgement call. This cannot: the levels are numeric, the duration is numeric, and the inspector will walk the egress path with a meter.

It is also the part of the package most often value-engineered into a problem. Remote heads get spaced for the fixture count rather than for the uniformity ratio, and the layout passes an average while failing a minimum. Getting the gear right at the quoting stage is cheaper than getting it right at the certificate-of-occupancy stage.

What the code actually asks for

• Ninety minutes, not sixty. NFPA 101 requires emergency illumination for not less than 1½ hours after normal power fails. That is what sizes the battery or the inverter.
• Three criteria at once, not one. Along the path of egress, measured at floor level: an average of not less than 1 footcandle, a minimum of not less than 0.1 footcandle at any point, and a maximum-to-minimum ratio not exceeding 40 to 1. A layout can pass the average and still fail on a dark spot between two widely spaced heads. The ratio is what catches lazy spacing.
• Decline is allowed, but bounded. At the end of the 90 minutes the level may have fallen to an average of 0.6 footcandle and a minimum of 0.06 footcandle. Not lower.
• Exit signs have their own numbers. Letters not less than 6 inches high with principal strokes not less than three-quarters of an inch. Externally illuminated signs need not less than 5 footcandles on the face. No point in an exit access corridor may be further from a sign than its rated viewing distance or 100 feet, whichever is less.
• Testing is a duty, not a courtesy. A functional test every month for at least 30 seconds, and once a year for the full 90 minutes, with written records.
• Self-testing gear only gets you part of the way. Standard self-diagnostic units run their own 30-second test at least every 30 days, but somebody still has to perform the annual 90-minute test by hand. Only computer-based self-testing units automate the annual test as well. This is routinely misdescribed by people selling the fittings, and it matters to whoever inherits the building.
• UL 924 is the listing that counts, covering emergency luminaires, exit signs, inverters and emergency lighting control devices. Since May 2022 an emergency lighting control device has to monitor the branch circuit feeding its own controlled load rather than an upstream panel, so older head-end monitoring schemes no longer comply.
• Controlled luminaires need to be listed as such. Where a dimmable or networked fitting is doing the emergency illumination, NEC 700.24 expects that luminaire to be listed for emergency use, or paired with a listed device that drives it to full output on loss of normal power.

Manufacturers in this category

19 of the 639 manufacturers in my index make emergency and exit fixtures. The one shown here is mine. The other 18, with who represents each one in South Florida, are in the manufacturer index.

Not seeing the line you were specified? Search all 639 manufacturers or look up the rep for your territory. I quote lines beyond the ones listed here.

What to send me for a price

• The fixture schedule, or the emergency and exit portion of it if that is all you have.
• The reflected ceiling plan and the egress path plan, marked up if the routes are not obvious.
• Ceiling heights, and whether the ceiling is hard, grid or open structure.
• Whether the building has a generator, a central inverter, or is relying on unit equipment with integral batteries. This changes the fitting, not just the price.
• Any Florida amendment or local fire marshal comment you have already received. If a plan reviewer has written something, I would rather price to it than around it.

Common questions

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SESCO lines I represent for emergency and exit lighting

1 of the 163 SESCO lines cover this category. Any of them can be priced from your fixture schedule.

Myers Emergency Power Systems

Not seeing a line? The full manufacturer index covers the whole market, or just send me the project.