ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Company refused to connect cooker (range)

Kiwi,

The European Union has a harmonised CE mark for electrical appliances thesedays. Any appliance sold in the EU has to comply with all of the harmonised regulations and display that CE "Conformite Europeene" mark.

Selling an appliance without it is an offence. You'd also leave yourself, as a retailer / distributor, open to pretty massive legal costs should anyone be injured by an appliance that doesn't conform.

CE doesn't just apply to electrical appliances it's a safety / standards conformity mark that applies to a whole range of goods.

From a website advising US exporters of EU regs:

The European Commission refers to the CE Marking of products as a "passport" which can allow a manufacturer to freely circulate their products within the European marketplace. The marking applies only to products regulated by the European Commissions health, safety and environmental protection legislation (product directives) but this is estimated to include more than 50% of the goods currently exported from the U.S. to Europe. All other consumer products are subject to the requirements of the General Product Safety Directive 92/59/EC, which does not require the CE-mark.

Oh yeah, "The Great CE Mark Fiasco," as a couple of writers at the time it was introduced called it.

Germany stated that they would not accept it and would still require everything to be certified to their own VDE standards while I think it was either Spain or Italy which said they didn't intend to enforce the regulations at all.

The United States of Europe.
Bah! Humbug! - ever hear of the Tower of Babel? They've got one in Strasbourg!

(Good book the Bible, always got the answers.)

Alan

To be fair, it's pretty rigerously enforced in most places.

The penalties for abusing it here are pretty enormous.


There's an example of a pan-european sales ban notice:

Reference No. 99-15/SE
Date of Notification: 27 July 1999
Identification of Equipment: Power Inverter/DC/AC Inverter Type PDA 150
Manufactured By: Chinfa Electronics Ltd, Taiwan
Imported By: Jula, Postorder AB, PO Box 532-24 SKARA, Sweden
A sales ban was implemented due to the failure to meet the protection requirements in Article 7(1) of the EMC Directive due to a deviation from Standard EN 55014 exceeding the standard limits on several frequencies.

The level of penalty varies from place to place. The fines are relatively small in Britain for example (in the thousands of euro) where as in Germany they're in the tens of thousands. Ireland operates a system of unlimited fines.. some scandinavian countries may base the fine on a % of the company's income.. etc etc

It's not exactly uniform and you will get kicked into touch far more severely in some countries when compared to others.



[This message has been edited by djk (edited 08-03-2005).]

Guys,
I was under the impression that a name like Zanussi, would mean Italian style.
And it is a very nice looking cook-top, but it has lost it's shine in all this.
What's more annoying is the fact that full price was paid for this bit of kit.
I've contacted the importer for more information, I'm not holding my breath though.
kiwi,
Sure you can, but who will listen?.
The fact of the matter is, the customer has already bought the said gear and want's it installed, end of story, if you won't, they'll get someone who will.
It's a PITA the way the customer can just circumvent any Regulations like this, meanwhile we can't.
Nice isn't it, a true double Standard.
I think the Importers have a lot to answer for. GRRR

DJK, you mentioned that selling an appliance without the CE mark in the UK is an offence. Who polices this and to what extent?

Standard conformity marking is mandatory in NZ too. But unless there is an accident inolving injury or loss of significant property then importers aren't investigated.

We use the CE mark here and an AS/NZS mark which is a harmonised acceditation between Australia and NZ

kiwi,
What does that mark look like?.
I've never seen one.

I would:

A: Naievly install it, assuming it has similar specs as similar sized properly labelled units.

B: Say no, until acceptable documentation can be produced.

Good point Trumpy. Declared Articles like fuses & circuit-breakers are all stamped with the CE mark ( as in DJKs picture ), and sometimes the number of the standard that it is tested to.

My own research suggests that electrical accessories tested to AS/NZS standards should be marked with its appropriate standard number. They're not though are they ?

The CE system basically allows manufacturers to make a declaration of conformity to european standards covered under the scheme. Most, will do this by having the product tested by recognised testing agency and then applying the label. However, they can declare it conforms. The issue is how it's policed. Within the EU (And the other countries that use the scheme e.g. Switzerland) random testing and severe penalties apply for faking a CE declartion of conformity. However, if the product is marked CE and sold outside of the EU (or EEA, which includes countries that cooperate closely with the EU .. Switzerland, Norway etc)... there is no reason why the CE mark would mean anything as there's no one to police it.

So, unless Australia and NZ are officially part of the CE system and actively policing it the CE mark on an appliance exported to there and not intended for sale in the EU is meaningless.

Typically on appliances here you will still see CE and one of the testing agencies / national standards agencies.

E.g. our hob has CE and NF (French standards)

our washing machine has CE and DVE (Germany)

I thought that this was the Australian Electrical Conformity mark:



[This message has been edited by djk (edited 08-06-2005).]