Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2011 establishes harmonized conditions for the marketing of construction products (CPR). This regulation, among other things, establishes the rules for CE marking of construction products and establishes the obligations of economic operators placing products on the EU market. Another action by the European Parliament was to extend the scope of the CPR to include cables and wires classified for their fire resistance. The regulation has been in force for cable manufacturers and suppliers in the EU market since July 2017.

Eltrim Kable makes every effort to ensure that the cables offered for permanent installation in buildings meet the requirements of the CPR regulation regarding fire safety.

General requirements regarding formal requirements, methods of verifying the fire resistance of cables and wires and issuing Declarations of Performance are specified in the standard EN 50575: 2014.

Detailed requirements can be found in related standards:

- EN 13501-6: "Classification of cables and wires in terms of reaction to fire".

- EN 50399: "Common methods for testing the flammability of wires and cables - Measurement of heat release and smoke production from cables during flame spread testing - Test apparatus, procedures, results"

- EN 60332-1-2: "Testing the flammability of electric and optical fibre cables and wires - Part 1-2: Vertical flame propagation test of a single insulated wire or cable - 1 kW mixed flame test method"

- EN 60754-2: "Testing of gases evolved during combustion of materials taken from cables and wires - Part 2: Determination of acidity (by pH measurement) and conductivity"

- EN 61034-2: "Measurement of the density of smoke emitted by burning wires or cables under specified conditions - Part 2: Test method and requirements"

- EN ISO 1716: "Fire reaction tests of products - Determination of gross combustion heat (calorific value)"

- CLC/TS 50576: "Electric Cables - Extended Application of Fire Reaction Test Results". 

The EN 13501-6 standard specifies the scope and methodology of tests necessary to assess the performance of cables and defines individual classes: Aca, B1ca, B2ca, Cca, Dca, Eca, and Fca, allowing for the unambiguous classification of cables and wires. The highest fire reaction class is class Aca, and the lowest is class Fca (Fca also indicates no fire reaction requirements). Current technical capabilities allow the production of cables with plastic insulation and sheath that meet the requirements of class B2ca. Therefore, in practice, we will only encounter classes B2ca, Cca, Dca, Eca, and Fca.

The CLC/TS 50576 standard contains a methodology for determining a family of cables of similar construction, allowing the selection of family representatives (EXAP) for testing and determining the reaction to fire class for this family.