European panel standards & CE marking
There are many different country specific and indeed international standardisation systems in operation. In Europe, the dominant standard is the Construction Products Directive (CPD). One of the easiest ways of complying with the Directive is through CE marking. A CE mark will also satisfy the material requirements of Building Regulations, there are however other methods of fulfilling building regulation requirements, as detailed in Building Regulation 7.
CE marking is carried out by complying with the so called Harmonised Standard which essentially pulls together all the relevant standards into one place. One of its main functions is to spell out what testing and how often it must be carried out so that the product is fit for purpose for a particular end use. Essentially what makes a harmonised standard different from any other standard is that it has an Annex ZA which gives details of how to apply the CE mark and the information that should appear on the CE mark. The ‘summary CE mark’ and the accompanying commercial documents or the ‘full CE mark’ will supply all the information needed to ensure that a product will meet a specification for the intended end use.
Example of a EU wood panels CE mark a full CE mark:-
 01234-CPD-2345 | Standard CE mark symbol Certificate number 01234 is the notified body designation, CPD is the Construction Products Directive and the 2345 is the certificate number. This shows that the factory has been audited. |
| Any Company Name & address 13 | This is the manufacturer’s name or the agent in EEA taking responsibility for the product ’13’ is the year the CE marking was affixed |
| EN 13986 P5 18mm Flooring load category A – span 400mm E1 | Harmonised standard number Board type (technical class) and nominal thickness Can specifically be used for flooring applications at 400mm centres due to testing carried out Formaldehyde classification |
Example of a summary CE mark
as placed on a label or the panel only (to be supplemented by the full CE mark in the commercial documents)
| Standard CE mark symbol |
| Any Company Name 13 | This is the manufacturer’s name or the agent in EEA taking responsibility for the product ’13’ is the year the CE marking was affixed |
| EN 13986 MDF 15mm E1 | Harmonised standard number Board type (technical class) and nominal thickness Formaldehyde classification |
The Harmonised Standard for wood based panels is ‘EN 13986 (Wood-based panels for use in construction. Characteristics, evaluation of conformity and marking)’. The harmonized standard covers all wood based panels that are under the European standardization system, these are OSB (EN 300), plywood (EN 636), dry process fibreboards (MDF)(EN 622-5), wet process fibreboards (EN 622-2, 3 & 4), cement bonded particleboard (EN 634), resin bonded particleboard (chipboard) (EN 312), LVL (EN 14279), solid wood panel (EN 13353) and Flaxboard (EN 15197).
