27/05/2025
As more woodworking businesses turn to digital tools to manage daily operations, the risk of cybercrime is becoming a growing concern. From managing stock and customer orders to accounting and ...
The harmonised European standard for fire doorsets (EN 16034) has been given a positive vote by the European National Standards Bodies (NSBs), gathering 89% of the votes and paving the way for the CE Marking of fire doors in accordance with the Construction Products Regulation 2011 (CPR).
The standard (EN 16034, Pedestrian doorsets, industrial, commercial, garage doors and openable windows – Product standard, performance characteristics – Fire resisting and/or smoke control characteristics) should be ratified within 3 months, and then there will be a 9 month transition period before CE marking can start dependent on the European Commission placing the standard “Live” on the Official Journal of the European Union. If this was to happen in October (following the 3 months) then you could see the first CE marked fire doorset in July 2015, if the time line doesn’t stray. Being live on the Official Journal is important as it doesn’t allow Notified Bodies to CE mark before this point.
A 5 year transition period from when CE marking starts and before it becomes mandatory had been requested, but this has not yet been agreed by the European Commission.
The standard will be ratified within 3 months taking into account the editorial comments given by the NSBs. The 5 year transition period was one of a number of points that the Ad Hoc UK Fire Door and Doorset Industry group had requested that the European technical committee (CEN/TC 33) responsible for the drafting of the standard would need to address.
The group, chaired by BWF Technical Director Kevin Underwood requested that the following points should be considered.
– The group would like immediate confirmation of the requested five year coexistence period.
– The group would like an immediate revision, or corrigendum, of the standard clarifying the relationship between Fpr16034 and EN 14351-1:2006 + A1:2010 and prEN 14351-2.
– The group would like a clear, unambiguous definition of a doorset which is the same for Fpr16034 and EN 14351-1:2006 + A1:2010 and prEN 14351-2.
– The group would like a clear, unambiguous definition of essential hardware.
– The group would like clarification of the sampling requirements for Notified product certification bodies from table ZA.3.1 similar to the CPD guidance paper K, (Guidance Paper K, concerning the construction products directive 89/106/EEC, the attestation of conformity systems and the role and tasks of the notified bodies in the field of the construction products directive.)
– The group would like the two definitions of, “ability to release” to be differentiated by redefining them as,
From FprEN16034, ability to release, to close,
From EN 14351:2006 + A1:2006, ability to release, to open.
Work on redrafting of EN 14351-1 is already in hand.
2014 is a busy year for standards work, with activity scheduled on a wide range of products including internal pedestrian doorsets, windows and external doorsets, and staircases. BWF is actively participating and keeping a watching brief on over 30 UK and European standard committees and we will inform you of developments and give you plenty of time to feed your views in so that we can represent you effectively through our activities.
