Fitting an Emergency Light

Krav

Hi All,

I would like an emergency light fitted that comes on automatically should there by a powercut/RCD trips. Has anyone had one fitted and/or can one be recommended? How does it sense that there is a powercut if it is battery powered? Does it listen for loss of power to a socket (which would not help as my lights and sockets are on alternating RCDs).

Also I have a spot light in the hallway, can it be converted into an emergency light too?

Regards

Jonesya

I fitted a non-maintained (eg. lamp is normally off but lights up on power failure) emergency light in the garage, they require a permanent supply which in my case I took from the lighting circuit, it uses this to charge the built-in battery and to detect when the power fails. I fitted one of these:

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Lighting/Commercial+Lighting/Emergency+Light+IP65+Non+Maintained/d220/sd2768/p59344

muckybutt

Krav wrote: »

Hi All,

I would like an emergency light fitted that comes on automatically should there by a powercut/RCD trips. Has anyone had one fitted and/or can one be recommended? How does it sense that there is a powercut if it is battery powered? Does it listen for loss of power to a socket (which would not help as my lights and sockets are on alternating RCDs).

Also I have a spot light in the hallway, can it be converted into an emergency light too?

Regards

There are two main types of emergency light, maintained and non maintained. Non maintained ones look as though they are always off ie unlit, maintained ones can be used as a normal light as well as an emergency light because they have the facility to be switched on and off.

Both types require a fixed 240V supply to them so that they are constantly on charge.

So to answer your question : if you wanted an emergency light that was for power cuts / rcd tripping you would put a non maintained light next to your fuse box and anywhere else you deemed it required to have ememgency standby lighting.

If you wanted to swap the fitting in the hall as you asked you would need a maintained fitting so that you can switch it on and off like a normal light, but it also has the added circuitry to allow it to be used as an emergency light should the power fail. However the fitting would need a permanent live which may or may not be readily available at the existing spot light.

Either way you would need a sparky in to do the work for you, unless you just put a plug on them and plug them in your sockets.

lagi

Also if its permanently charging a battery might be worth looking into the costing of it as a running cost too.

Would confuse the neighbours when theirs a powercut though.