Ladder and Step Specifications

 

There have been some major changes in the recent few years due to the development of the EN131 standard to envelope as many product types under one standard. This may have caused a little confusion so below we will try to answer some questions you may have.

British Standards Kitemark - what does it mean?

British Standards Institution (BSI), also known as the BSI Group, is the UK's national standards body. It sets technical specifications for a wide range of products and services. As a manufacturer using BSI, we can apply a Kitemark on any product that has fully passed BSI’s rigorous testing .

BSI also offer a testing service for nonstandard products e.g.  a ladder that may require its width to be slightly narrower than the standards specify. The ladder would comply with all the other parts of that standard but cannot be kitemarked as being fully compliant.

Manufactured or Conforms to - what does it mean?

We manufacture to our customers’ requirements creating bespoke equipment to solve working at height issues. To do this we use long standing and robust standards that may have been withdrawn or not for a specific material. e.g. The Class 1 BS 2037 (Aluminium) and BS 1129 (Timber) - standards which have been withdrawn by British standards,  but we still manufacture to these standards just simply omitting the Kitemark from the product. 

We also manufacture extension ladders that can be either Kitemarked BS EN131 or just simply conforms to the standard because of a different base dimensional requirement by the customer. We would say that these products are manufactured to the relevent standards.

 

Summation

We are customer driven to provide products that are practicable and fit for purpose and sometimes this takes products outside of specifications. Wherever possible we will incorporate the use of known standards to strengthen the build and ensure product and material integrity.

The kitemark is only our benchmark.

 

the following are all relevant standards for new and existing products