Signs that get people out of a building they do not know

Why signage keeps coming up on inspections

Signage is the cheapest part of fire safety to get right and the easiest to let slide. Signs get painted over, taken down during a refit and never put back, moved to the wrong wall, or left pointing at a door that has since been blocked off with shelving. Nobody notices, because everybody who works there already knows the way out.

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 puts the duty on the responsible person to make sure escape routes are indicated. The Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996 require pictogram-based signs. BS 5499 sets out what those pictograms look like, so the same symbol means the same thing in every building in the country — which is the whole point. People follow signs they recognise without stopping to read them.

What we supply and fit

• Running man escape route signs, directional arrows and final exit signs
• Fire action notices at every call point and exit, completed with your assembly point
• Extinguisher identification signs, so the right unit goes on the right class of fire
• Fire door signage — fire door keep shut, keep locked shut, automatic release
• Call point, alarm panel and sounder identification
• Photoluminescent signage for routes that may lose power or fill with smoke
• Door furniture markings — push bar to open, push to open, emergency exit keep clear
• No smoking, no access and hazard signage where the risk assessment calls for it
• Assembly point signage outside the building
• Braille and tactile signage where accessibility requires it

Survey first, always

We do not sell signage off a price list. An engineer walks each escape route the way somebody leaving the building would — from the furthest point of every floor to the final exit — and notes where the sightlines break, where a junction is unmarked, and where a sign is present but wrong. You get a marked-up schedule showing what is missing, what is incorrect and what can stay.

If your fire risk assessment has already flagged signage, send it over and we will work directly from its action list so the remedials close out cleanly.

Signage and emergency lighting go together

A sign is only useful if it can be seen. On escape routes without adequate borrowed light, signs need to be either internally illuminated or externally lit by the emergency lighting scheme, or be photoluminescent to a suitable class. Because we install and test emergency lighting to BS 5266-1 as well, we look at both at the same time rather than fixing one and leaving a gap in the other.