From John Harrison:

Also now illegal to have fire exit signs that do not have either the British Standard or European running man pictogram

Don't get me started on that one! More idiocy from a bunch of Brussels and Whitehall bureaucrats who think that when people go to another country they're too stupid to work out that exit, sortie, Ausgang, or salida all mean the same thing. Even if you'd never seen the language before, how long would it really take to figure out that "xxxx" means "exit" when you keep seeing it over doors?

So we end up with thousands of perfectly good exit signs in landfill (which they claim they are trying to avoid!) and a bill to business of millions so we can have a pictogram of a man running -- Just what fire officers tell people not to do in an emergency.

O.K., rant over.....

Maybe there's something in the photos I'm missing, but I can't actually see that much wrong. The fuse on the PC board of the first one looks as though it's been replaced with the wrong type. On the second fixture it looks as though the resistor below the transformer might have caused a little charring to the board, but I can't see anything else that really stands out as a problem.

John,


What's the problem with a BC pigmy lamp?

Paul,
as you are aware in regard to having a pygmy lamp (or any other light fitting) attached and connected to a fitting internally that has not been `factory` fitted is considered as incorrect,

if you needed a maintained (lit at all times,) or a sustained, (one source of illumination that is fed from one side of the supply, and emergency lighting control gear seperate,)
you would fit one.

what i can see that has happened, the fire officer has visited the site and told the occupants that the exit lights neede to be lit at all times, so mr sparky (i use the term very loosley) fits a cheap lamp fitting and puts a bulb in it.

this is not done, and does not comply, also the use of incandescent lamps within emergency lighting fittings is now also not allowed,

a bit of reading for you on this is BS5266 parts 1 to 7

also another good one, (or not so good if you are a company owner ) is the new RRO,

the Regulatory (fire) Reform Order which is now in place as of October 2006.

this is a nightmare for busineses

all in all, you should not adjust, add or remove any parts of a fitting in order to change its use.

britspark

As an interesting piece of trivia, in Slovakia (1970s hotels) I recently saw emergency lights with BOTH the pictogram and the word EXIT on the front!
I was pretty surprised, especially in a country where far more people speak and understand German or maybe Russian than English!

Ah.... For some reason I hadn't cottoned on to the fact that these started out as non-maintained fixtures. Maybe it's because the color-coding on the wires to the BC lamp holder in the first one appears to match that of the (what I had assumed to be) original wires to the PC board.

Looking at the connections in the second fixture, it's clear now that the holder has been added.

I hadn't realized that, but this isn't an area I'm involved with (funnily enough I've just installed two new emergency lights, the first I've had anything to do with for ages).