Spec Finish

BS EN 13964 Suspended Ceilings - Requirements and Test Methods is a crucial document for manufacturers and system owners of suspended ceiling products, but who else is it for and what does it cover? Technical ATECHNICAL GUIDANCE NOTE – BS EN 13964 www.thefis.org 13 I N response to requests, and with contribution from our membership, FIS has authored a document that accompanies BS EN 13964 and gives plain language guidance through the lens of the UK market on the following: • key definitions and terminology with reference to common use terms; • product types included and excluded by the scope of the standard; • overviewof product types and typical details; • full summary of product requirements as prescribed by the standard; • tolerances, installation and selection of fixings; and • a guide to conformity marking. BS EN 13964 prescribes product requirements to designers andmanufacturers as well as any parties that could place a ceiling kit or components on themarket. It also carries a designated status, so it is required in order to apply a conformity mark according to the correct AVCP systemand certify a declaration of performance (DoP). The guidance note aims to break down the standard into bite-sized sections making it easier to understand to those who aren’t already familiar, allowing anyone to isolate only the sections that are relevant or of interest and gain either a passing understanding or establish the necessity of purchasing the full standard. Where appropriate, each section covered will also give relevant commentary on reasonable expectations of products in the marketplace today. While the guidance is not designed to replace the standard and should not be relied upon to relay comprehensive detail and listings, it will prove useful to anyone who is not sure if the standard applies to certain products, are using the standard for specification purposes or simply wish to understand more about the reasonable expectations of performance requirements of a suspended ceiling. FIS has already published a comprehensive SpecifiersGuide toCeilings andAcoustic Absorbers that references BSEN13964, but gives specification advice based on all common ceiling types and associatedmarket expectations of performance and tolerances, so the advice is not constrained to only those types of ceilings covered by the standard. FIS Specifiers Guides to Ceilings and Acoustic Absorbers, Drylining, SFS External Wall Systems and Partitioning are all available on the FIS website at www.thefis.org/membership-hub/ publications/specifiers-guides The BS EN 13964 guidance note is available to download from www.thefis.org/ knowledge-hub/technical/fis-technical- notes-industry-alerts/ Using BSI Standards BSI publishes hundreds of standards documents governing all aspects of construction products and processes with considerable variation in scope and function. Even amongst standards that specifically cover construction products; some describe testingmethodologies for one discipline, some for multiple disciplines, some describe performance requirements and can be used as specification criteria, some deal with tolerances and quality of installation and finally those that carry designated status deal withmandatory conformity (UKCA) marking. Not all of these functions are useful to every business, and it can be confusing to understand whether a product standard is applicable without first buying it. These product standards are also often used as specification clauses to control product quality, manufactured tolerances, installation tolerances, product characteristics and product performance against acoustic, fire and structural properties (to name a few). In reality, these standards documents rarely control all of these factors at once, andwhere they do, itmay not bewith the desired level of clarity, or in line with the existing expectations of themarket. It is also important to consider what variations of a product and typical details are covered by a standard (and, therefore, which are not). This will help understand when and how it is appropriate to use these in specification clauses. The BSI Knowledge portal ( https:// knowledge.bsigroup.com/ ) can be used to find and purchase all these standards, and most have previews that show enough of the document to understand its scope before you decide to purchase. www.thefis.org/knowledge-hub/ technical/fis-technical-notes-industry- alerts/ James Parlour, FIS Technical and Vetting Manager Ceiling perimeter using suspended blind box trim