The Building and Life Safety Codes specify where exit signs and emergency lighting must be installed, how much illumination is needed, how long emergency luminaires must stay on after an outage, and how they must perform.
In Section 1008.3.3, the International Building Code (IBC) provides a list of specific rooms and spaces where emergency lighting is required to be installed. These rules are not based on occupancy type, number or required exits or occupant load. The rules are specific to certain types of rooms or spaces where an additional measure of safety is warranted just because of the nature of the room type.
One room that must have emergency lighting according to the IBC is “electrical equipment rooms”. Electrical equipment rooms are not defined in the IBC or the NEC® which leaves a huge grey area for interpretation.
The electrical inspector enforcing the NEC® probably won’t require emergency lighting in an employee break room that happens to have a branch circuit panelboard unless the panel contains a service disconnect. The building inspector enforcing the IBC might see the small employee break room also as an electrical equipment room because of the panelboard on the wall.
The solution might be to require an emergency light in the area and to remember that an inspector who encounters a gray area in the codes will almost always enforce what is most restrictive.
IBC 1008.3.3 Rooms and spaces. In the event of power supply failure, an emergency electrical system shall automatically illuminate all of the following areas:
According to the IBC, in the event of a power supply failure, an emergency electrical system shall automatically illuminate which of the following?
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