The door and window industry is now facing the prospect of operating two routes for testing and certifying the security performance of door and window products. This may seem foolhardy, but, when compared to the alternative of accepting BS EN 1627-30, in their current form, this may be a risk worth taking.
With a bias towards manual intervention testing, and a limited scope, which excludes exposing lock cylinder weaknesses, the European standards have long been criticised for a lack of repeatability and a failure to address security issues pertinent to the UK domestic market. Additionally, given the time it has taken to get EN 1627-30 to the current stage, the thought of driving through revisions to address new security concerns is a sobering one indeed.
To address the concerns of the UK industry bodies, the BSI and Secured By Design, PAS 24 has been re-drafted to allow several methods for demonstrating compliance. The first being to meet BS EN 1627 resistance class 3 for doors and 2 for windows, with the addition of cylinder vulnerability clauses.
The second would be to meet the test requirements of annex B for doors and C for windows, which are effectively the current versions of PAS 24 and BS 7950 respectively.
PAS 24 for doors, and BS 7950 for windows, are performance standards that have been developed over a number of years to address the specific security requirements for UK domestic applications. Supported by an infrastructure of industry bodies, certification and standards organisations and Secured By Design, these standards evolve to respond to the ever changing techniques of opportunist burglars. Therefore, consumers and specifiers should continue to insist on PAS 24 for security performance, backed up by third party certification.
In addition to changes to security standards, we are also now into the consultation period for Approved Document L, and the fenestration industry is facing tougher criteria for the thermal performance of products, with the potential for replacement doors to require a U value of 1.4 or Door Energy Rating Band C.
The Association of Composite Door Manufacturers has been a long standing advocate of product performance certification, requiring PAS 23 & 24 as a key requirement for membership. Coupled with the superb insulative properties of composite door products, specifying a certified product from an ACDM member is a sure way to exceeding the appropriate performance standards
