The Construction Products Directive

Summary

The Construction Products Directive is a CE marking Directive that is primarily concerned with the safety of such products, and sets essential performance criteria for buildings under six headings - mechanical resistance and stability; safety in case of fire; hygiene, health and environment; safety in use; protection against noise; and energy economy, including heat retention.

This directive is unusual in a few ways. Firstly, it applies to the construction as a whole, not to individual components. Secondly, this directive only applies to products for which there are harmonised standards. In the absence of a harmonised standard, any existing national standards apply. Thirdly, member countries of the EU are free to decide the legal status of the guidance codes within their own territory and, indeed, whether or not to require the CE marking. Thus, in contrast with the requirements of all other CE marking directives which apply identically in every one of the 27 member states of the EU, CE marking under the CPD is not mandatory in some contries, including the UK, Ireland and Sweden.

An alternative to the use of harmonised standards are European Technical Approvals, for which a notified body must examine the product to confirm it complies with the essential requirements of the directive. In this situation, approval can be based on draft standards before the harmonised standard is issued. The administrative requirements are concerned with production methods that result in consistent products; however, as of yet there is no harmonised standard for this.

A Declaration of Conformity, including a justification of the claim of conformity, is also required. This directive has several exclusions, most notably anything sold prior to 1991 and minor part products, which will be defined by a list yet to be published.

Contents

Citation
Purpose
The approach
Compliance with the Directive
Harmonised Standards
European Technical Approvals
Recognised National Standards
Administrative requirements
CE marking
Exclusions
Minor part products
Useful Links
Further advice

Citation

Council Directive 89/106/EEC of 21 December 1988 on the approximation of laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the member states relating to construction products.

Published in Official Journal L40, 11 February 1989.

Purpose

The primary function of the Directive is to ensure the safety of constructions in all countries of the European Economic Area. The Directive lays down certain essential performance criteria for buildings under six general headings:

• Mechanical resistance and stability
• Safety in case of fire
• Hygiene, health and the environment
• Safety in use
• Protection against noise
• Energy economy and heat retention

The approach

The directive is different from other New Approach directives in that the performance requirements apply to the construction as a whole and not simply to each individual component. This adds a considerable layer of complexity to the process of creating product standards since it is first necessary to produce a series of documents outlining the performance of the buildings themselves before it is possible to draft a series of standards which can be used to define the performance characteristics of individual components.

In practice, the definition of building performance has been encapsulated in a series of Eurocodes which provide detailed guidance on the design methodology for structures. The Eurocodes cover all aspects of the design of structures and contain formulae and data which can be used to calculate the key dimensions and other design variables for any proposed construction.

Member countries of the EU are free to decide the legal status of the Eurocodes within their own territory to some extent. Adoption of the codes as part of the national building regulations is optional, but countries are required to recognise structures built to the codes as having been adequately designed (written question 671/90 in OJ(C) 325 of 1990 refers).

Compliance with the Directive

As already noted, the Directive requires that products which are incorporated into constructions are to be adequately specified so as to ensure the performance of the structure itself. In practice, of course, this means that a series of product standards have to be produced so that manufacturers have proper benchmarks against which to judge their designs.

The Directive actually permits three methods of compliance:

• Manufacture in compliance with Harmonised European Standards (referred to in the Regulations as 'relevant national standards' and otherwise known as 'Euronorms'
  
  
• European Technical Approval (ETA)
  
  
• Manufacture in compliance with a recognised national standard.

Unlike the other CE marking directives, the CPD does not have a transitional period. Instead, the directive simply does not apply to products for which there are no harmonised standards, so CE marking is not mandatory until a harmonised standard is available against which to CE mark the product.

Another way in which the CPD differs from the other New Approach directives is that the Directive itself does not define the required attestation procedure for any particular product or group of products. Instead, a large number of Commission decisions have followed the directive and these essentially determine whether the manufacturer can self-certify their products or the involvement of an independent inspection body (a "notified body") is required.

Harmonised Standards

Around 2000 harmonised standards are in preparation, and about 300 have so far been fully harmonised (i.e. their number has been published in the Official Journal of the European Community ("the OJ")). A list of the Harmonised Standards can be found on the European Commission's website. As noted above, while standards are in development, there is no requirement for CE marking for the affected products, and any existing national standards still apply. However, once the harmonised standard has been published, the national standards have to be withdrawn and compliance with the harmonised standard becomes mandatory. The actual dates for withdrawal of conflicting standards and mandatory application of the harmonised standard are given alongside the publication of the harmonised standard number in the OJ.

There is much information available on the web on the status of development of the harmonised standards. The most useful links are the Commission's New Approach website and the British Standards Institution's online catalogue. However, the standards themselves are only available from the national standards agencies (although in the UK you may be able to get access to them in your local library.

European Technical Approvals

An alternative to the use of harmonised standards is the European Technical Approval (ETA). Under the ETA, a notified body must examine the product and confirm compliance with the essential requirements of the Directive. In practice, the ETA must be done to guidelines agreed on a Europe-wide basis so this method is actually of limited use at present. Its main application is that it permits the CE marking of products before a Harmonised standard has been issued since the ETA can be based on a draft standard. It therefore makes sense for product types which will be subject to notified body approval even when a harmonised standard has been issued, but for those products where self-certification by the manufacturer is all that will be required, it generally makes more sense for the manufacturer to wait until a harmonised standard has been published.

In contrast with harmonised standards, guidelines for European Technical Approvals are available for free download.

The Commission do not publish a list of Notified Bodies, but a co-ordinating body called EOTA provides a list of members in each state of the EU. Manufacturers may chose to use whichever they wish to when CE marking their products, and may choose to use a body from another member state if they decide that this is preferable to using one from their own country.

Recognised National Standards

In theory, the third route to CE marking is to use recognised national standards as a means of complying with the Directive. The idea is that national standards are recognised by the European Commission as alternatives to the harmonised standards.

This approach was tried with an attempt to have three standards (one British, one French and one German) on fire resistance adopted as an interim measure under the Directive. The idea was that if a product could be demonstrated to pass all three tests, it should be considered as compliant with the requirements of the Directive. For reasons which are not entirely clear, this was thrown out by the member states and it looks unlikely that any similar attempts at recognising existing national standards will be made (written question 1479/91 in OJ(C)20 of 1992 refers).

N.B. - It is important not to confuse 'relevant national standards' with 'recognised national standards' since the former are each country's implementation of the Euronorms while the latter are a nation's internal documents which (it appears) will actually have no status when it comes to complying with the Directive.

Administrative requirements

In addition to meeting the technical requirements, in order to comply with the Directive products must meet certain administrative requirements. These are:

1. Control of series production:
   The manufacturer must be able to demonstrate that their production methods will result in consistent product. Clearly manufacturers who already operate a quality control system which has been recognised to a national standard such as ISO9000 will easily be able to meet this requirement, but ISO 9000 approval is not necessarily a pre-requisite for complying with the Directive.
   
   
2. Completion of a Declaration of Conformity;
   The manufacturer declares that their product meets the requirements of the Directive. This document must contain some details of how the manufacturer justifies their claim of compliance and must be kept for 10 years from the date of its creation.

It should be noted that the exact details of the requirements for controls on series production have yet to be defined since this will be left up to the relevant harmonised standards. It is possible that the standards will include requirements for independent type testing and for ISO9000 approved quality control systems, but it should equally be noted that some member states of the EU (the UK in particular) are against making this sort of requirement mandatory and such provisions are therefore only likely to be used sparingly.

CE marking

The visible manifestation of compliance with the directive is the appearance of the CE logo on the product. In addition to the logo, where a notified body has been involved in the CE marking process, their unique reference number will also appear.

In most cases, the harmonised standards require certain product information (size, performance, name of manufacturer etc.) to appear alongside the CE logo.

Exclusions

There are certain exclusions to the Directive.

• The regulations do not apply to any product supplied within the EU for the first time prior to 27 December 1991.
  
  
• Second-hand products are excluded from the requirements of the Directive
  
  
• 'Minor Part' products are also treated in a different way to other products.

Minor part products

Minor part products are excluded from the requirements to be manufactured in accordance with a harmonised standard or subjected to an ETA. Instead, they must be manufactured according to an 'acknowledged rule of technology'.

The definition of a minor part product is extremely clear in that only items which appear on a list to be published by the EU are to be considered as minor parts. In practice, this list has yet to be published and the indications from the European Commission are that it may not be prepared for some time (years) yet (written question 1143/92 in OJ(C) 317 of 1992 refers).

Information available to date indicates that only very minor parts such as door furniture, hinges, ornamental fittings and the like will appear on this list and it certainly will not include items of structural significance or which can contribute in any way to health and safety.

Useful Links

There are a number of useful resources on the CPD on the internet. In particular:

The European Commission's EUROPA web site has a great deal of information in its Construction industry section.

The UK Government's Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) is responsible for developing construction related legislation in the UK. They have some useful information and information on the CPD on their web site.

Standards are listed on the Commission's website and details of standards activities can be accessed via the New Approach website.

Links to some bodies notified under the directive can be found on our Notified Bodies page.

Further advice

As with all CE marking directives, the actual requirements for any piece of equipment under the directive are complex and dependent on not only the design but also the type of user, the intended use and sometimes even what is claimed in the instructions or sales literature.

For further advice specific to your products, please contact us at Conformance and we will be pleased to discuss your needs. If you'd like us to prepare a no-obligation quote for assisting you with CE marking your products, please take a look at our page which gives details of the information required in order to be able to give you an accurate idea of the costs and procedures involved.