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PRO INSTALLER AUGUST 2014
PRO REGS
@proinstaller1
CE Marking –
what’s the story?
John Warburton, Window and Doors Sector Manager for BRE tells Pro Installer readers what is happening with
CE Marking and how to be aware that the window and door products you are using, carry a valid CE Mark.
CE marking of windows
and doors became mandatory over a year ago,
but still many companies choose to ignore
it. For most window
and door manufacturers, the process and
bureaucracy involved
is not too daunting, so
what’s involved?
November 1989 saw the
collapse of the Berlin Wall
and four years prior to this
the European Economic
Community or ‘Common
Market’ became the European Union. It was decreed
from Europe at this time,
that all construction products should conform to a set
of harmonised standards.
The aim of the conformity
was to remove the then,
existing national standards
and replace them with
a set that would operate
Europe-wide, removing trading barriers and allowing
companies to sell across
borders.
Fast forward, twenty-four
years to 1st July 2013, and
it became mandatory for
all windows and external
pedestrian doorsets without
resistance to fire and/or
smoke leakage characteristics to carry a CE Marking.
In principal, very simple!
In practise, just a little too
complicated!
The first thing you realise
when you look at EN14351;
the EU standard in question,
is the range of performance
characteristics included;
clauses such as, ‘explosion
resistance’ and ‘bullet resistance’ give the impression of
a complex instruction, but
fortunately, unless specified
by the purchaser, they are
not required. Areas of the
standard that are required,
are those called for in the
‘National Building Regulations’.
And everyone will be
pleased to know, windows
and doors installed as replacements in houses, only
3 or 4 which are neces ͅ