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Downlights in your home

Electrical Inspection
April 15, 2020
By Neil on
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Downlight electrician in Belfast

Downlights can be dangerous, are you sure your's are safe?

In modern buildings standards are in place to delay the spread of flames in the event of a fire. One particular standard applies to the ceiling of a building. The ceiling is considered one of the most important fire barriers, slowing the spread of the fire from floor to floor. When installing down-lights care must be taken to ensure the fire rating is maintained.

Safety Standards state that a ceiling should be constructed from plasterboard that has a fire rating of at least 30 minutes for a fire to burn through… older and poorly fitted downlighters can compromise these safety methods.

When older and poorly fitted downlighters were installed into a ceiling they would have created a hole in the plasterboard, this provides an edge and a weakness for a fire to take hold more quickly and enables fire to pass into the roof void and spread further throughout your home,

The difference between down-lighters installed today and ones that were installed pre 2005? Safety!

Most down-lights purchased today have built in fire protection, be careful though many large DIY stores still sell non fire rated fittings, these fittings would require a Fire/Smoke hood to be fitted in order for them to comply with building regulations.

The Building regulations state that any residential building with a top floor height of up to 18Mabove the ground should have ceilings that are fire resistant for up to 60 minutes while residential buildings that have a top floor up to 30m should have ceilings of fire resistance for up to 90 minutes, because of these regulations, down-lighters installed today must be appropriately rated for the building they are fitted to.

Fire rate downlighters contain a material that expands when it reaches a certain temperature and seals of to hole to slow down the spread of fire, this in turn gives people more time to escape. Most off the shelf fire rated down-lighters today give you a 90 minute protection in the event of fire.

So are your downlights safe? 

If you are still in doubt, contact a qualified electrician or give me a call I would love to hear from you and would be happy to advise.

Electrical Inspection
Belfast

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DIY electrics
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Dangers of older downlights
Neil
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