Steps & Ladders

Safety Steps- Information on EN Regs Testing Rig

Following the introduction of part 7 to the EN 131 standard, there is a growing interest in tested warehouse steps. Heavy duty warehouse steps were previously covered within the European BGI637 standard and this standard was effectively incorporated into the scope of EN 131-7 in September 2013. This, together with the previous levels of parts 1 to 3 of the EN 131 standard, has defined criteria for design, test and certification across a wide spectrum of step units. We have a vast range of UK manufactured steps which are tested to the EN 131 standard and the EN 14183 standard and users are becoming increasingly interested in using products that have the benefit of conformance and certification. No longer can manufacturers & suppliers say that there is no British standard. We have been the only UK manufacturer of Safety Steps which are accredited to the European GS & DGUV Standard for many years and elements of these relevant standards have been incorporated into our design and test criteria for all of our UK manufactured steps. This is so we can ensure that the necessary levels of product strength, durability and stability are achieved. Our manufacturing processes all take place under controlled conditions conforming to ISO:9001 ensuring product conformity is verified. With regard to the recent addition of the domestic and professional markings for EN 131, there are durability tests that products now need to undergo. This is 10,000 cycles for EN 131 Domestic and 50,000 cycles for EN 131 Professional. All the appropriate Fort Steps are marked in the catalogue to which standards the steps meet but the majority of Fort Steps meet EN 131 Professional. The other standard available is EN 14183 and this is for steps under 1M platform height and again these meet the required regulations. We have built our own in house testing rig for the repetition testing to meet the new EN 131 professional standards. So far we have tested 19 ranges to the new EN 131 professional standards including either the 50,000 repetition test at 165kg or the 350kg load test. We will continue to test other ranges against the 50,000 cycle repetition test, even where the BS EN 131 professional standard is not applicable.