02/05/2025
The UK Government is considering some significant amendments to building regulations which will impact BWF Members and the wider woodworking and joinery manufacturing industry. A consultation of ...
The Ad Hoc UK Fire Door and Doorset Industry group has decided to vote in favour of the standard FprEN 16034, which is set to drive the CE Marking requirements for Fire Doorsets, but drew up a list of points that the European technical committee (CEN/TC 33) responsible for the drafting of the standard would need to address, such as a confirmation of the coexistence period.
The significance of this standard is that under the Construction Products Regulation 2011 (CPR), it has become mandatory for manufacturers to apply CE marking to any of their products which are covered by a harmonised European standard (hEN) or European Technical Assessment (ETA).
The group, chaired by BWF Technical Manager Kevin Underwood discussed the response to the final vote and approval to publish for FprEN 16034, Pedestrian doorsets, industrial, commercial, garage doors and openable windows – Product standard, performance characteristics – Fire resisting and/or smoke control characteristics.
The decision taken unanimously by the group was to vote “yes” and the conclusions were reported to BSI Technical Committee B/538/ 1 and 2 and agreed to form the UK response to the final vote and approval to publish for FprEN 16034.
Having agreed to the publication of prEN16034 the group requested that the following points be considered by CEN/TC 33:
– 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.
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.
