Plumbers and Sanitary Ware

Plumbers in the trade have noted that there is currently obvious confusion around whether sanitaryware should be marked by a CE mark. Currently CE marking is not compulsory in the UK. This, however, can change in the future following the revisions of the Construction Products Directive.

Currently, manufacturers can choose to use the CE mark if there is a harmonised European Standard for the product. Nevertheless, any bathroom suite installed in the UK has to meet the performance requirements of the Regulators’ Specification for WC suites.

Class 2 of the EU harmonised standard for WCs and bathroom suites (EN997:2003) mirrors the required specification so the product should comply with the regulatory requirement. If the bathroom product is CE marked, the plumber should check that the accompanying information refers to compliance with Class 2 of EN997.

If the product is not CE marked, the plumber should ask for confirmation that it complies with the regulatory requirements.

At the moment there are harmonised European Standards for most sanitary appliances so CE marking could become the norm, especially if future legislation makes it mandatory to have a CE marking within all EU member states.

In the meantime, bathroom hardware manufacturers use their discretion regarding CE marking.

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This page has been written with contributions from plumbing and heating engineers from London and plumbers from Enfield. Several of the company's heating engineers from Essex have worked on similar issues as well as some of our experienced plumbers from Chelsea and our Finsbury Park Gas Safe engineers.

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