European Fire Testing Classification for Construction Products
The EU Construction Products Regulation (CPR) is the basis of construction products regulations used in all member states including the UK. This Regulation requires construction products to be classified using a set of reaction to fire test methods. These products include all wall lining, flooring, roofing and other fixed products such as linear pipe thermal insulation products and electric cables.
The CPR required all member states to allow classify these products using the test methods and systems described in EN 13501. These test methods, and in some cases the classification system, are now being used extensively beyond the European Union. Both being used by countries wanting to establish or upgrade their own regulations without spending extensive research and development budgets and by producers wanting to export products to Europe. firelabUK engineers have worked with CEN in the development of these test methods.
EN 13501-1 European CPR: Wall, ceiling, flooring and linear pipe thermal insulation products
firelabUK and our sister laboratories offers CPR testing in accordance with EN 13501-1: Fire classification of construction products and building elements – Part 1: Classification using data from reaction to fire tests. This standard splits products into 3 sets; Construction product excluding flooring products, Flooring products; and Linear pipes and thermal insultation products. The fire tests are listed below and most are used to assess products in all sets whilst others are just used for one product set.
| EN 13823 | Reaction to fire tests for building products, excluding floorings exposed to thermal attack by a single burning item |
| EN ISO 11925 | Reaction to fire tests for building products - Ignitability of building products subjected to direct impingement of flame |
| EN ISO 1716 | Reaction to fire tests for building products - Determination of the heat of combustion |
| EN ISO 1182 | Reaction to fire tests for building products - Non combustibility test |
| EN ISO 9239 | Reaction to fire tests for building products - Horizontal surface spread of flame for floor coverings |
Please note that electric cables have their own classification system which is given in EN 13501-6 – see the European Cable Testing and Classification section.
Each of these sets has 5 classification levels A1, A2, B, C, D and E and a non-performance determined class "F" and the performance criteria and the fire test methods to.
Products in the non-flooring set are tested using the SBI test plus all other test methods except the EN ISO 9239-1. Flooring products are tested using the EN ISO 9239-1 instead of the SBI (EN 13823).
Table 1 shows the test methods and performance criteria for all construction products other than flooring products. Table 2 shows the test methods and performance criteria for flooring products and Table 3 shows the test methods and performance criteria for linear pipe insulation products.
Products in class A1 are mostly based on non-organic materials and classification into this group is gained using EN ISO 1716 Determination of the heat of combustion and the EN ISO 1182 Non Combustibility Test.
Classification into classes A2, B, C and D which are the major classes inhabited by most products, other than those described above, require testing using either the EN 13823 or EN ISO 9239-1, and EN ISO 11925-2; Class E only requires testing to EN ISO 11925-2.