The purpose of the Construction Products Regulation (
CPR) is to provide reliable information on construction products, and it provides a “common technical language” with uniform evaluation methods, at the European level, as to the performance of construction products.
These methods are brought together in harmonized technical specifications.
This common technical reference is used by:
- Cable manufacturers such as General Cable that declare the performance levels of their products
- The authorities of the Member States, who specify levels of requirements concerning cables,
- The users (architects, engineers, construction companies, etc.) who select the products that best suit the planned uses in construction projects.
The table of classes covering Fire Reaction performance (point 12) takes into account all aspects of fire behaviour for cables, measured on full-sized samples.
This constitutes a major advance in the field of fire safety and enables national Authorities to deal with cables in the same way as the other construction products already covered by the
CPR.
The table is a central element of the regulations governing the building sector in Europe.
Each country is free to choose the ways in which it wants to integrate the classes in its own construction standard and/or regulations. The ways in which the classes are taken into account will vary from one country to another in the European Union.