Adding emergency lights to existing fixtures

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lzielk

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I have a situation where I am adding two head battery powered emergency lights . They are being installed next to the existing fluorescent fixtures . I need a normal feed to these emergency light Would it be code compliant to gang the emergency light to the existing fixture to feed normal power to the emergency light to the fixtures
 
lzielk said:
I have a situation where I am adding two head battery powered emergency lights . They are being installed next to the existing fluorescent fixtures . I need a normal feed to these emergency light Would it be code compliant to gang the emergency light to the existing fixture to feed normal power to the emergency light to the fixtures
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That would, in fact, be the preferred method. If power to the light fails, whether there is a blackout or someone throws/trips the breaker that fixture is on, you'll have light at that location.
 
gadfly56 said:
That would, in fact, be the preferred method. If power to the light fails, whether there is a blackout or someone throws/trips the breaker that fixture is on, you'll have light at that location.
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But if the existing fixtures are switched (other than at the breaker?), even if they are customarily left on 24/7, you should not use that switched power for the battery protected lights. Turning off the lights, for whatever reason, would start to run the battery down, potentially making the backup unavailable in case of a real power failure.
As a corrolary, any planned maintenance on the normal lights must take into consideration the effect in the emergency lights.

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GoldDigger said:
But if the existing fixtures are switched (other than at the breaker?), even if they are customarily left on 24/7, you should not use that switched power for the battery protected lights. Turning off the lights, for whatever reason, would start to run the battery down, potentially making the backup unavailable in case of a real power failure.
As a corrolary, any planned maintenance on the normal lights must take into consideration the effect in the emergency lights.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
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Yes, you are of course correct in that. I assumed that there was access to the unswitched portion of the circuit and should have made that clear.
 
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