Keeping Your Emergency Lights Ready For A Power Outage Or Other Emergency

Posted on: 30 December 2020

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Emergency lighting plays a large role in the safety of most commercial and many residential buildings. When that lighting is not working properly, it is essential to correct the issue. You should not neglect emergency lighting, so when a light is not functioning, emergency light repair services should be your first call. 

Monthly Inspection and Testing

Emergency lighting is typically installed so that each light is independent of the next, so if one fails, the others will still function. The light that does fail could be in a stairwell or a dark area that needs lighting, so allowing even one light to not work correctly is a liability that most building owners do not want or need. 

Each light in the building needs to be checked regularly, and it may mean setting up a rotating schedule so that you have someone checking the lights weekly, monthly, or even daily. During this inspection, a failure of a light means dealing with some emergency light repair or having a service come and make the repairs for you. 

Fixing Common Failures

Emergency lights have a battery, low voltage charger, and a sensor in them that senses a power outage and turns the lights on for you. If the battery is not charging or the sensor is not working, you will need to have an emergency lighting repair company come and diagnose the problem to be corrected. 

Often, a dead battery in these lights is because the battery is old and needs replacing, but in some cases, the charger that is maintaining the battery stops working. To determine which is the issue, the repair tech will have to check the charger and the circuitry involved. 

If the charger is not working, it is often cheaper to replace the entire light assembly than to fix it. Likewise, the sensor that controls the light when the power goes out is typically hard to service, and a failure may mean replacing the emergency lighting in that area. 

Light bulbs in the emergency light are easy to replace, so commonly a maintenance person can take care of that if the light is functioning otherwise. Still, it is a good idea to hire a professional who has some experience and knowledge of the systems and how they work. 

Updating Old Lights

You may have a lot of old emergency lights in your building that have seen better days. Hiring an emergency lighting repair service to replace all the lights in the system could be beneficial. Not only will it reduce the maintenance cost for the lighting, but new lights have newer technology in them, and some insurance companies will lower your premium when you update all the lights on the property.