December 16, 2019

The era of the electric exit sign is coming to an end as major corporations implement photoluminescent exit signs, demonstrating that photoluminescent exit signs are commercially viable.

Bunnings, Harvey Norman, Giancorp, Crema and CBRE are just some of Australia’s nationally recognised brands and owners and managers of buildings that are using photoluminescent exit signs to reduce costs, reduce emissions and reduce harmful wastes. Globally they join prominent buildings in the UK, USA, EU and Canada that use photoluminescent exit sign technology .

Electric-battery exit signs are failure prone, locking in expensive electrical maintenance and replacements

Continuing to use old electric-battery exit signs is locking a business into buying and maintaining a comparatively short lived and failure prone technology. 

When working, every electric-battery exit sign is a light left shining day and night. That means increased energy bills and more emissions.

It also means electric components, batteries and globes that can fail.

Units that fail are often ignored because it’s so expensive and disruptive to replace them, or their replacement is delayed until the next 6 monthly electrical inspection.

The units that fail are typically thrown away when they’re eventually changed over.

What to do about it

To combat the failure rate of electric-battery exit signs and to manage their risks, building owners and facility managers are often encouraged to install a building management system or central monitoring system to report the status of each sign. That comes with costly installation and networking costs, even more expensive network models of exit signs and ongoing licensing fees for the management system.

For manufacturers of electric-battery exit signs it means that failed exit signs are replaced faster – which is good for safety and even better for the bottom-line of the electric-battery exit sign industry. They’re bad for your budget though.

In comparison, an environmental photoluminescent exit sign is just the sign itself. Light is stored within the photoluminescent material within the sign face. There’s no electrics to fail, within the sign panel or hidden in the roof space.

With Safety Path environmental exit signs having a 12 year warranty, they will last. And without electrical components to fail there’s no need for expensive monitoring systems or 6-monthly electrical inspections.

Safety Path also has hybrid LED Exit Signs that have a highly energy efficient LED as a light source, and still no electric-battery to fail. Hybrid LED Exit Signs are ideal for where there’s energy saving lighting or building spaces where the lights aren’t on, such as basements and service corridors.

If you genuinely care about safety then its hard to argue with the science of photoluminescent exit sign technology.

When there is a better technology for many applications, facility managers should be asking whether it is commercially viable and sustainable to be installing exit signs using the outdated technology in an electric-battery exit sign.

Photoluminescent exit signs commercially viable

Photoluminescent exit signs are commercially viable because they have:

• No electric components to fail
• No backup power systems to be installed
• No batteries to be replaced
• No need to be connected to a building management system or central monitoring system
• No emissions from power during their operation
• No harmful waste compared to electric exit signs, which generate waste every 2-5 years when an electric unit fails
• 30 year life for Safety Path photoluminescent exit signs (accelerated age testing).

The business case for their use is clearly there because some of Australia’s biggest companies are installing them.

When installed in accordance with the National Construction Code (2019), Safety Path photoluminescent exit signs are fully compliant.

Continuing to use electric exit signs in new and existing buildings is wasteful, locking facility managers into an endless cycle of electrical inspections, replacement units and networking costs for a control system, which only benefits suppliers of electric-battery exit signs. With Safety Path’s high-quality photoluminescent exit signs expected to last 30 years, there’s big savings to be achieved.

Any organisation seriously concerned with corporate social responsibility and reducing its costs should be considering photoluminescent exit signs in its corporate social responsibility strategy and cost-reduction strategies. By doing so, they’ll be moving with the rest of the world to reduce emissions, reduce costs and reduce stress.

Find out more about Safety Path Photoluminescent Exit Signs here.