Line marking
Escape route marking
In a fire, whether people leave a building quickly depends on whether the route out is obvious to someone who is not thinking clearly and cannot see far. Marking that has faded, that was set out for a layout the racking no longer follows, or that stops where the smoke starts, is a liability question as well as a safety one.
What an escape route has to do
An escape route is the path a person takes, unaided, from wherever they are working to the open air or to a protected area. In an industrial building that path usually crosses the same floor as the forklifts, runs between racking that was installed after the building was designed, and passes doors that are used for goods the rest of the year.
The same route is also the way in for the fire service, which is what raises the standard: it is not enough that the route exists on a plan and is signed at the door. It has to be identifiable at floor level, continuous along its whole length, and clear of anything that has been put down on it, which in a working warehouse is the part that fails first.
What the rules require
Across the European Union the common instrument is Directive 92/58/EEC on safety signs at work, which obliges employers to provide safety signing where a risk cannot be removed by other means, and ISO 7010, which fixes the graphical symbols so that the same pictogram means the same thing to a worker or a visitor in any country. The green running figure on an emergency exit sign comes from there.
What the directive does not do is set one detailed rule for every country. Each member state implements it in its own law, and the practical requirements, how wide a route has to be, how it is marked at floor level, how often it is checked, are set nationally. The United Kingdom implements the same directive through its own safety signs regulations, which survived the withdrawal from the EU unchanged in substance.
That is why Rejuva starts a marking project by establishing which rules the building falls under rather than by proposing a scheme. A layout that satisfies one country's fire authority is not automatically acceptable to another's, and the difference shows up in details that are expensive to correct after the paint has cured.
What we mark
An escape route is legible when the floor, the obstacles and the exit all say the same thing. These are the elements that usually make up a scheme.
-
The route itself
A continuous marked path from the working areas to the exits, set out so that it stays readable from standing height and from a low position, which is where a person will be if there is smoke.
-
Keep-clear zones
Hatched areas in front of exit doors, fire equipment and electrical panels, which exist to make an obstruction visible as an obstruction rather than as a temporary convenience.
-
Pedestrian and vehicle separation
Where the escape route crosses a forklift aisle, the crossing is marked as a crossing. This is the point on most warehouse floors where the two duties, fire safety and traffic safety, meet.
-
Directional marking
Arrows and floor-level indication where the route turns or where a reader could reasonably choose the wrong way, which is usually at racking ends and at cross aisles.
-
Photoluminescent marking
Where the route may have to be followed with the power out, marking that stays visible without it. Whether this is required rather than advisable depends on the building and on national rules.
Why the marking dates faster than the building
Escape route marking is usually correct on the day it is applied and wrong two reconfigurations later, because racking moves, aisles are re-pitched and a door that was an exit becomes a goods door. The marking stays where it was painted, and it now describes a route that no longer goes anywhere useful.
This is worth saying plainly because it is the most common finding on a survey: not marking that is missing, but marking that is intact and out of date. A scheme is worth reviewing whenever the layout changes, which is the same trigger that makes a racking installation need its inspection and its load notices redone.
How we deliver it
Rejuva delivers the project from the survey to the finished floor and works around the operation rather than stopping it.
-
Survey
The routes walked and measured against the current layout, the applicable national rules established, and the existing marking recorded as it is rather than as the plan says it should be.
-
Scheme
A marked-up drawing of the routes, the keep-clear zones and the crossings, agreed with whoever is responsible for fire safety on your side before anything is applied.
-
Preparation
Floor cleaned and, where old marking is being replaced, removed properly. Paint applied over a failing previous layer fails with it.
-
Application
Marking applied in sections so the building keeps working, with each section left to cure before traffic returns to it.
-
Handover
The finished scheme recorded as a drawing you keep, so the next layout change starts from what is actually on the floor.
Frequently asked questions
Is floor marking required, or are signs enough?
It depends on the building and on the country. Signage is the baseline everywhere under Directive 92/58/EEC, and floor marking is what makes a route followable in a large open industrial space where a sign at the door is not visible from the middle of the floor. Which of the two is a legal duty in your case is one of the things the survey establishes.
What colour should an escape route be?
There is no single European answer, which is why we set it at the survey rather than quoting one here. The exit signage itself is fixed by ISO 7010, the green running figure, but floor marking conventions are national and are also affected by what else is already marked on your floor.
How long does the marking last?
It depends on the traffic over it and on the floor underneath, so the honest answer is that it is inspected rather than scheduled. What shortens it reliably is forklift turning over the same spot and application onto a floor that was not properly prepared.
Can it be applied while we are working?
Yes, and that is the normal case. The work is sectioned so that each part of the floor is out of use only while it is being marked and while it cures, and the sequence is agreed before anyone arrives.
Do you supply the exit signs as well?
Rejuva's work here is the floor: the route, the keep-clear zones and the crossings. Where signage has to change to match a re-routed escape path, we set that out in the survey so it is dealt with rather than left as the one part of the scheme that still describes the old layout.
The two surfaces we mark most often
A factory floor and a car park are marked to different standards, in different materials and usually by working around different hours, which is why they are read separately even when the same site needs both.
Have a project in mind?
Describe what needs to happen in the building and we will come back with a proposed approach, the specialist who would carry it out and a budget you can work with.