Luminaires: Safe as houses?

DIY has always been popular with homeowners but the range of successful home 'make-over' shows on our televisions demonstrates just how strongly the passion for home design has grown in the last ten years. Homeowners don't just want better light or more storage now, they want to convert their property into a fashionable or artistic space or to create an ambient home that will make profit when they sell it.

As such electric light fixtures and fittings of all shapes and sizes now feature prominently in most design schemes. They are key to 'maximising space' creating 'an oasis of calm' or giving the room a 'clean industrial ' or 'cosy' feel. Finding an appropriate light to contribute to a design scheme has led to a boom in the production of fashionable electrical lighting products. These items are often designed by artists rather than by electricians and as such are appealing to consumers more often for their aesthetic qualities rather than their endurance or performance. While the designs are getting smaller and slimmer the technology itself remains more or less the same.

An alarming consequence of this demand for fashionable items is that many lighting products quickly manufactured to meet changing styles are not certified for safety; so consumers are bringing them into their homes unaware of any possible risks.

Fifty years ago electric lights were purely functional. The fittings themselves were tried and tested hardly changing in decades and one manufacturers fittings looked very similar to another. They were installed because of a practical need - for long-term illumination of the home. Now, this is not so. Many of the lighting products on the market are almost disposable in nature and some are intended only for occasional use. Consumers are encouraged to change them every few years by style gurus, so manufacturers don't necessarily build their products to endure ten, twenty or thirty years of use but rather to differentiate their styles from those of their competitors.

CE Marking & Safety

While it is true that in Europe all electric lighting products are obliged by law to carry a CE mark that represents a manufacturers declaration of conformity with the relevant European product Directives including the General Product Safety Directive, the EMC Directive and the Low Voltage Directive, the CE Mark does not show that safety testing has been conducted or that a product has been certified as safe.

A manufacturer is not obliged to make any tests at all in order to make declaration. His products may be completely safe and he may genuinely conform to the directives, but legally they're only required to substantiate their declaration with information in a technical file. Some manufacturers choose to do this with documented test data, others do not.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the CE mark is not just applied by conscientious manufacturers making genuine declarations of conformity. It also has to be applied by the unscrupulous manufacturers who simply don't care one way or the other about safety, who hope never to be challenged on the validity of the CE mark and Declaration.

Safety Testing & Certification

Safety testing and certification is available to manufacturers of lighting products. However, even amongst those conscious of the need for product safety, there are some that consider it inappropriate. Essentially they will deem a light to be a simple circuit product with little in the way of complex electrotechnical components that can go wrong - and that as such they feel that most lighting products present minimal risk in the home. While its true that lights are generally less complex than other small appliances like irons or toasters, they do tend to change with fashion more frequently which increases the chances of their build quality being compromised.

Also in building the product most manufacturers choose plugs, cables and transformers etc that have already been tested as individual units and therefore feel additional safety tests are unnecessary for the final product, opting instead just to use the CE mark on it's own.

It's interesting to note that since 2001, the number of lighting products withdrawn, recalled or even banned in EU states has increased significantly year on year. Indeed most of the items that met such a fate last year were for luminaries of one type or another. All of those products would have carried a CE mark. So how can consumers, retailers and enforcement agencies tell the difference between the varying levels of quality and safety of CE marked goods?

Additional safety certification of products facilitates such a differentiation. Products bearing a third party mark have been certified as safe by a professional certification body and any ambiguity as to their safety performance is removed. Taking a CE mark as a designation of safety is a matter of trust for the consumer. Taking a third party safety certification mark as a designation of safety is a matter of fact.

What can be done?

While the majority of lighting products that come on the market are probably safe with genuine declarations, those who want some level of assurance as to the safety of the products they sell can make some educated choices:

1) Choose lighting products that have been manufactured in line with the code of practice issued from one of the national or international lighting associations. These associations lead the way in encouraging the manufacture of safe goods.

2) Choose to sell lighting products that display a third party testing and certification mark

3) If you are selling a lighting product that has not been independently certified, then request to see the 'technical file' for that product. This should give you some re-assurance as the file will detail any safety testing has been completed. Look too for evidence of either full product approval that certifies the product for the lifetime of the approval or a Certificate of Compliance - that is like a car MOT and indicates the product was safe when it left the factory.

Consumers looking for a level of assurance in their lighting products can:

1) Opt to buy lighting products that display a third party testing and certification mark

2) Purchase their lighting goods from a supplier that actively employs safety requirements in their product selection criteria

Lighting will always be an essential part of our lives and inevitably people will always want something that 'looks nice' to have in their home. Consumers should have the freedom to pick an item for its aesthetic qualities, with the assurance that the product is safe; protecting themselves and their homes.