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Standards are developing and being improved all the time. A prEN is a preliminary standard or draft standard that has not yet been finally approved and ratified by the member states. In the absence of a finalised standard or EN (European Norm) products can be certified to such a standard. However, once it becomes an EN products must be re-certified to the final “harmonised” version.
In addition sometimes standards are superceded by later versions generally with the aim of improving or tightening up loopholes, though there is currently no requirement for products currently certified to an earlier version to be recertified under the latest version - hence the product label should indicate the DATE of the standard as well as the standard number itself.
This can lead to potentially hazardous confusion where a revised standard makes a substantive change in the standard.
A good example of this is the Type 3 & 4 standard EN14605. The earlier 1995 addressed chemical permeation through the fabric BUT NOT THE SEAMS with the result that a garment with bound (not sealed) seams could be certified to Type 4 though probably not Type 3.
However, the latest 2005 version requires a chemical permeation test on the seams and minimum performance which a bound seam will not pass. So a bound seam garment could not be certified to this standard.
Yet there remain in the market place garments with bound seams certified to Type 4 (the old standard) which could lead to missunderstandings about their suitability for an application.
For this reason it is always important to check which version of a standard a product is certified to.
Lakeland is working to ensure ALL garments are certified to the latest standards.
Back to CE Standards page
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