Author: Trevor Dimond

Last week I had the opportunity to visit the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It looks a lot different today than it did when I last I visited in 2008 (see 2008 photo on right and 2018 on left).

In 2008 there was only one demonstration floor fitted out but it did include Ecoglo! The building is now 163 floors high and, although they were adding a floor every 3 days, in 2008 it was still quite a few floors short of that.

In all there are around 11,500 steps in the evacuation routes with Ecoglo step products providing a fundamental element in the emergency egress systems for the building.

To see how Ecoglo works in those systems take a look at the video on: http://www.Ecoglo.com

Or at least point them in the right direction 🙂

As part of our new initiative in the GCC region Ecoglo will be exhibiting at the Big 5, 26-29 November at the Dubai World Trade Centre.

We’ll be at stand number 6E263 in the Building Interiors & Finishes area showing photoluminescent path marking solutions to meet IFC and NFPA requirements as well as our revolutionary UL 924 listed hybrid PL exit sign.

Our technical team was working with an electrical contractor last week. He commented that in the last 6 years he has worked on dozens of tilt slab buildings with mezzanine stairs and it was the first time he’d encountered Ecoglo replacing the emergency lighting.

He was very pleased with the Ecoglo system commenting, “the electrical emergency lighting is such a waste of money, the batteries only last 2 years, and it’s a major health and safety issue to replace the batteries.”

Nice to see acceptance in the electrical fraternity 🙂

It was great to see our new LED/PL hybrid exit signs being used in a new micro-brewery in Christchurch.

A great fit with their sustainability credentials and $ savings to put into building a great business.

Also the Pale Ale was particularly delicious 🙂

I’ve been corresponding with Mike Shulman, Principal Engineer, Lighting at UL in Fremont California. My discussion focussed on a number of topics but let’s look at visibility in smoke.

I asked for Mike’s comment on this statement: A PLM exit sign does not work in smoke conditions and smoke is a foreseeable circumstance.

Mike’s response:

“No exit signs work in smoke. Smoke creates two concurrent conditions: first, it scatters all light making any exit sign just a faintly glowing object with no discernible legend or image. Second, it is an extreme irritant to the human eye and makes it virtually impossible to keep your eyes open at all (resulting in no visibility whatsoever). Smoke filled rooms and hallways can generally only be traversed by getting very low to the ground where, for a period of time, the smoke layer may not be complete. Floor proximity luminous path markings are the preferred tool to assist with building evacuation where smoke is likely to occur during the process.”

It’s interesting that the Lighting Cartel look to propose more and more luminance to solve a problem that could be solved very easily with a low level photoluminesent sign.

Having been in Toronto last week it was great to walk through Union Station a number of times and see Ecoglo’s photoluminescent exit signs throughout – 2,400 installed so far with more to come as redevelopment continues.

It was an easy choice for the facility’s operations team. It’s not that often that you can make a significant step forward in sustainability while saving a bucket load of money – and all building code compliant.

Very straight forward and simple – unless you’re just trying to make it very complicated.

I’ve seen some pretty good somersaults in my time from some real experts but when I read the Lighting Council’s latest Illuminations newsletter I was impressed.

It described a private dinner with Minister Craig Laundy whose ministry is responsible for the Australian Building Codes Board.

I wonder whether Minister Laundy spotted the quick flip the Lighting Council had to make to get to being a bastion of innovation and market choice with this:
“The 2019 draft NCC has a number of especially concerning provisions that will have the effect of significantly and unnecessarily reducing the range of lighting equipment that can be deployed in the built environment.”

When in the previous paragraph their position was this:
“The dinner provided an opportunity for Lighting Council to brief the Minister directly on industry’s concerns about the 2019 draft of the National Construction Code (NCC) and the use of photoluminescent exit signs.”

In my opinion it makes sense if the “industry’s concerns” are looked at in the context of the impact on their members’ margins and profits. This of course means facility managers and the property sector in general pays more.

The fact that USA, Canada, Japan and New Zealand all have building code provisions for photoluminescent exit signs to replace battery back-up exit signs seems to have escaped the Lighting Council – or possibly that’s what their real concern is?

I read in the Manufacturers’ Monthly that Lighting Council Australia is relaunching Exit Cycle, a recycling program to improve “the recycling rates of emergency and exit lights.”

This looks like some progress as now at least there’s acknowledgement that a problem exists.

The article states that “there are approximately 30 million emergency and exit lights” in Australia and “the majority of the green-emergency lights we see across all buildings are powered by a combination of older battery technologies, which often use cadmium, nickel metal hydride or sealed lead acid”, (“green-emergency lights” – is that a bit of greenwashing?).

I wonder where all those batteries and the e-waste from failed exit signs are going now?

The obvious solution is to get rid of batteries and e-waste forever by using more photoluminescent exit signs and emergency visibility products.

But then there’s the little issue of all that turnover generated by servicing and replacing 30 million fittings ie don’t kill the goose, we want facility managers to keep laying the golden eggs.