by jbs060210 b3 — June 4, 2010—BRE Global says it has disproved the view commonly held within the worldwide community of manufacturers of automatic fire detection and alarm equipment and system designers and installers that equipment designed to meet the European EN54 Fire detection and fire alarm systems standards cannot be used within an installation designed to the U.S. National Fire Alarm Code NFPA 72.
BRE Global commissioned a third party to test the issues relating to equipment compatibility between the EN54 standards and the NFPA 72 code, then assessed the results for each of the product categories. The study showed that there are very few performance and functionality issues that need to be addressed.
Carol Atkinson, CEO of BRE Global commented. “This report demonstrates the compatibility between the U.S. Code (NFPA72) and European Standard (EN54) and should go a long way to addressing any issues or reservations that specifiers have had when looking at cross-border, global projects. This now opens up new territories for manufacturers and provides the specifiers with more choice for independently tested and approved products.”
LPCB, part of BRE Global, will now be developing approval schemes for this range of products to ensure that the additional requirements over and above those in the EN54 product standards are assessed and certificated. This provides product manufacturers with the necessary documentation for approval from the proper authorities.
Copies of the full report, U.S. National Fire Alarm Code NFPA 72 and European Standards in the EN54 Series—Assessment of Compatibility, are available for free download from BRE’s Red Book Live (currently on the home page, on the right-hand side).
