Occupancy Switches and Egress EM Lights

[luckylerado]

While doing an NFPA 101 90 minute test of emergency lighting, I notice that the stairwell lights are still being controlled by occupancy sensors while the lighting circuit is off. Investigating further, the stairwell lighting circuit is fed from a bank of batteries with an inverter so that on power fail, they are fed with line voltage during the outage.

Im not questioning the inverter method so much as I am the occ sensors in the circuit. Seems like a potential point of failure in an emergency. Does anyone see any violations here with the way this is set up?

 

[lielec11]

While doing an NFPA 101 90 minute test of emergency lighting, I notice that the stairwell lights are still being controlled by occupancy sensors while the lighting circuit is off. Investigating further, the stairwell lighting circuit is fed from a bank of batteries with an inverter so that on power fail, they are fed with line voltage during the outage.

Im not questioning the inverter method so much as I am the occ sensors in the circuit. Seems like a potential point of failure in an emergency. Does anyone see any violations here with the way this is set up?

I'm not sure it is necessary a violation, although I would think most jurisdictions would not approve. If there is no movement in that particular stairwell for an extended period of time (depending on the setting of the occupancy sensor) the lights will be off. If someone is trying to egress in an emergency and the occ sensor doens't operate there will be issues.

 

[steve66]

IMO, the occupancy sensor would have to be listed for use on an emergency circuit, or there should be a relay (also listed for emergency use) to bypass the OS when power fails.