ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area I know UL, but what's SA?

I've noticed on a lot of electrical and even some plumbing items a little SA in a partial circle along with the UL symbol. I've never known what it stood for. Is it a European testing company or what? Just curious, thanks.

Probably CSA or Canadian Standards Association.I hear that CSA has a department at UL where American made products are also being tested to meet Canadian standards allowing these products to be sent directy to the Canadian consumer with less government red tape.You know Free trade.

Canada is your biggest trading partner and you will start seeing CSA and cUL poping up more and more these days.Also the NEC and CEC code will be identical within the next 15 years.

It's CSA for the Canadian Standards Association. It is a standards organization and also a NRTL:

From their website at http://www.csa.ca :

Here are some more International Approval Symbols .

Organizations Currently Recognized By OSHA as NRTLs:
Applied Research Laboratories, Inc. (ARL)
Canadian Standards Association (CSA)
(also known as CSA International)
Communication Certification Laboratory, Inc. (CCL)
Curtis-Straus LLC (CSL)
Electro-Test, Inc. (ETI)
Entela, Inc. (ENT)
FM Global Technologies LLC (FM)
(also known as FM Approvals and formerly Factory Mutual Research Corporation)
Intertek Testing Services NA, Inc. (ITSNA)
(formerly ETL)
MET Laboratories, Inc. (MET)
NSF International (NSF)
National Technical Systems, Inc. (NTS)
SGS U.S. Testing Company, Inc. (SGSUS)
(formerly UST-CA)
Southwest Research Institute (SWRI)
TUV America, Inc. (TUVAM)
TUV Product Services GmbH (TUVPSG)
TUV Rheinland of North America, Inc. (TUV)
Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL)
Wyle Laboratories, Inc. (WL)

Yep that's it. I guess that partial circle is a C. Now my curiosity has been fixed for the moment and I have some new knowledge. Thanks!