Kiwa closes the gap in health protection for indoor construction products
As a manufacturer, you are currently in a complex situation with regard to CE marking and general building authority approvals (abZ) for products in the floor and wall covering sector. It becomes particularly difficult when it comes to the regulations of health-relevant product properties. We now have a simple solution for you.
A complex situation
In the opinion of the German Building Code, the area of hygiene, health and environmental protection of building products in recreation rooms was only insufficiently taken into account by the CE marking and declaration of performance in the sense of the Building Products Code. For defined products, additional health-relevant product properties (e.g. VOC emission behaviour or the use of substances harmful to health and the environment) were therefore regulated by the German Institute for Building Technology (DIBt).
The scope of application applied, inter alia, to
- textile and elastic floor coverings (EN 14041),
- parquet (EN 14342),
- floor coatings (EN 13813) and
- related trades, but also for
- wall coverings (EN 15102).
The ECJ ruling changes the legal situation
These products were mainly regulated by general building authority approvals (abZ). With the judgement of the European Court of Justice C-100/13 of 16.10.2014, however, the practice of double labelling was declared inadmissible. Many manufacturers therefore extended the abZs of their products until the end of the transitional period in 2016. However, their validity will soon expire and they cannot be extended under the current legal situation. An approach to new product developments was also not clearly defined at the time.
The solution
One way to make the quality and safety of your products visible to your customers is a TAB report (TAB - Technical Assessment Body). You can use it to record information on performance characteristics in relation to building requirements. They are regarded as proof of usability on a voluntary basis in addition to the performance description within the scope of the CE marking for the requirements defined in the MVV TB (Muster-Verwaltungsvorschrift Technische Baubestimmungen - Model Administrative Regulation for Technical Building Regulations) for structural information relating to health protection.
In short, it allows you as the manufacturer to re-evaluate the performance characteristics for health protection and thus to build a bridge to meet the building requirements.
A TAB report from Kiwa
We issue TAB expertises as an independent body - legitimised according to Article 30 of the Construction Products Regulation (Regulation (EU) No. 305/2011) - after detailed examination of the proofs of the performance characteristics. In order to ensure uniformity in the production process and traceability of the product, external monitoring can be implemented in the sense of construction supervision.
Our cooperation - as experts for TAB expertises and inspections - with eco-INSITUT as a competent partner for VOC analytics, creates an opportunity for you to design health protection in interiors efficiently and safely.
Our cooperation partner
The eco-INSTITUT is an independent testing laboratory accredited according to ISO/IEC 17025. For 30 years it has been a leading provider of emission and pollutant measurements of products according to national and international specifications. The eco-INSTITUT is a European notified body for the CE marking of building products, a monitoring and certification body according to the state building regulations and a recognised testing laboratory for voluntary test marks and test schemes such as AgBB, natureplus, Blauer Engel, GEV emicode and all other relevant labels. Particularly healthy products can be awarded their own eco-INSTITUT label. For further information please visit the website of the eco-INSTITUT.