Emergency Lighting-commercial Bldg.

[RUWIREDRITE]

I have a customer who renovated an existing attic space in a dental office building . The purpose of the new space is to relocate existing employees to the new space, mostly office clerical workers. My question is, the building was built in the late 70's and has no emergency lighting whatsoever, The building has one main entrance, a ramp to another handicap entrance/exit and two other emergency exit doors. The building load is under 50 occupants. Is emergency lighting required in the new attic office addition, and how about the existing first floor? Will they be required to update and install emergency lighting thruout the entire building? The new addition has been wired and rough inspected, the new plans show no provisions for exit emergency lights which was passed thru the local inspection office. We are ready for final inspection on this project and dont need any hassle on the finals.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

I would contact the fire marshall and ask them what the requirements are. In our area they are more than willing to walk thru the building and tell you what is needed.

 

[bphgravity]

I agree with Dennis. Check with your local AHJ and/or FM. Does your state/local jurisdiction adopt an "existing building code"?

 

[eprice]

You say the occupant load is less than 50. Is it 30 or less?

Prior to the attic renovation, what was the attic space used for? With occupants in the attic space, I would considere this to be a two story (or more) building. Was there more than one occupied story in the building prior to the renovation?

 

[RUWIREDRITE]

Thanks for the replies,
The buildings attic space was just storage, the first floor was the primarily used floor and the basement contained storage and an employee kitchenette.
Its hard to figure the average occupant load, but they have 6 denists each with there own assistants.There is about 8 clerical people and the rest would be clients. Perhaps under 30 people would be a safe guess.The state is New Jersey also.I been getting different answers from the local jurisdiction about what it needs to comply.Each authority seems to have its own view on whats nessesary. Whether or not the existing structure is grandfathered from older codes seems to be the issue. I would be more than happy to install what is needed and have even made provisions in the new addition for exit/emergency lighting, the question is if i install it, will the local authorities make the client upgrade the entire building which would be an enormous finacial undertaking on his part.This has been a very good client of ours and I don't want to take him over the barrel on this issue fear of losing him if later he found out he didnt need this lighting afterall.I was hoping there was a place to see it in black and white that covered this issue so i can at least be intelligent about my decision. Thanks Again.

 

[hmspe]

Thanks for the replies,
Its hard to figure the average occupant load, but they have 6 denists each with there own assistants.There is about 8 clerical people and the rest would be clients. Perhaps under 30 people would be a safe guess.

I'd suggest you talk to an architect. Occupant load has nothing to do with how many people work there. It's calculated on an "X square feet per occupant" basis, with X varying depending on what the occupancy type is. There may be a lot more problems than just whether you need emergency egress lighting.

Martin