News from the EDSF

Tuesday, 12. July 2011 - Successful General Assembly 2011 at Madrid

This years General Assembly of E.D.S.F. took place in Madrid, Spain, hosted by its member Tecnifuego-Aespi. All members and many interested groups took part in the two days meeting.

Within the Working Group "Energy & Sustainability" a common calculation method - validated by CEN/TC 33/WG 5 (doors/gates)  for energy losses of buildings was presented at the first day. With this calculation it turned out that the door/gate parameters "U-value, Air-leakage and Opening time" have a real impact on the energy consumption in correlation to the building type and size. It was decided to continue with the programming of the E.D.S.F.-Energy-Calculator based on the calculation method. Additionally it is planned to get in dialogue with the Green Building labels like LEED, BREEAM or DGNB to convince them to implement the impact of doors and gates in their rating systems.

Also at the first day the Working Group "Service and Maintenance" could finalize the draft E.D.S.F.-guideline "service and maintenance" and got its approval by the E.D.S.F. members.

Due to the fact of too many unsafe and not maintained doors in the market and that the legislative framework is currently not well known within customers and is different between the EU-countries, E.D.S.F. has to be pro-active in awareness building.

Therefore E.D.S.F. defined an E.D.S.F.-guideline "Service & Maintenance" which should help manufacturers, owners and users to fulfil their tasks and improve the understanding for a regular service.

The European Product Standard for industrial/commercial/garage doors and gates EN 13241-1 states that the manufacturer is responsible to define the service and replace cycles. Here E.D.S.F. proposes that:

"Maintenance (excluded inspection by 3rd party) in accordance with the manufacturer?s specification at minimum at once per year for all manually or power operated doorsets. For doorsets placed on the market before 2005 (not CE-marked) the maintenance should always include risk assessments in order to update the doorset (proposal to upgrade including components as e. g. drives, control units or implementation of a new door/gate) according to state of the art (technology) to ensure safety and reliability are met.

For doorsets placed on the market a risk assessment is necessary if the original intended use has changed. Minimum checks according the E.D.S.F. checklist.

It must be clear that the owner is responsible for the safety of the function of the door."

Additionally extended definitions concerning the qualification of a service provider and a service engineer/technician could be fixed within the working group. Here E.D.S.F. wants to state out that it is important to have a lot of practical experience in the field and well trained and skilled engineers to fulfill the current standards. The service provider should educate and update regularly his service technicians to improve the safety of doors and gates in the market. Not every "door & gate-service company" who is acting on the market fulfills the basic codes and standards!

The second day the General Assembly presented the results of last years E.D.S.F. activities. After the new orientation of E.D.S.F. last year showed that E.D.S.F. sets on the right topics. That was confirmed by the six new members out of five different countries who joined in the E.D.S.F. and support the objectives of the association.

During the General Assembly important topics could be discussed as the market situation for doors and gates which recovers from the economic crises. Generally the residential market is more or less stable and the industrial doors are increasing slowely. Of course there are regional differences - in the south EU countries the market is still instable because it is difficult for many companies to get credits to stimulate the economy with necessary investments. Beside these "nervous areas" a lot of activities could be recognised concerning safety improvements. In middle and north Europe a positive development could be recognized.

Concerning the European standardisation Olaf Heptner - convinor of CEN/TC 33/WG 5 - reported about the upcoming new standards of the prEN 16034 - Fire resistance + smoke control product standard. In the middel of next year a whole family of standards belonging to the prEN 16034 will be available. Here should be mentioned the prEN 16035 - HPS-Hardware performance sheet and the prEN 15269 - EXAPs (Extended applications) which should reduce the testing effords for manufacturers and will simplify the CE-conformity because the new standards will replace the different national accreditation systems. Due to the upcoming standards E.D.S.F. decided to start a new Working Group "Fire & Smoke" to find a common understanding for the door and gate industry.

Closing the General Assembly with an presentation from Pierre Bianchini - Kone Corporation - about "The Lift Directive and The European Lift Association (ELA)" E.D.S.F. could win interesting starting points how to devolop lobbying activties concerning service and maintenance needs on EU-level.

In total this years General Assembly was a full success - after the new start last year E.D.S.F. could show up its first results and looks positivly towards a lot of new ideas in the future.

The next General Assembly will be on the 14th/15th of June 2012 at Stockholm where all intersted door and gate associations and manufactures are welcome.