Overview: Understanding the New Euro Standards

• The introduction of new European Standards for plywood and the subsequent withdrawal of existing British Standards may cause some early difficulty to members of the timber trade and other professionals who regularly use such documents.
• The APA technical brochure 'American Plywood and European Standards' explains each European Standard and advises on how APA trademarked plywood fits into this new system.
• Where there is a difference, as with measurement of panels for example, the PS1-95 system is given as a comparison to the new European method. It gives the latest information available but readers are advised that the situation regarding some standards is still fluid.
• The two most prominent British Standards covering the requirements for plywood in the United Kingdom and Ireland used to be BS 6566 Parts 1-8 and BS 5268 Part 2 which lists structural information.
• BS 5268 Part 2, for the time being, will co-exist with Eurocode 5 - Design of timber structures Part 1.1 : General rules and rules for building. This situation will probably continue to the year 2008, when it is anticipated the British Standard will be withdrawn.
• BS 6566 Parts 1-6 and Part 8 were withdrawn on 31st December 1997, and are replaced by a series of European Standards (EN's). Part 7 was withdrawn in April 1999 following the publication of an informative national annex to DD ENV 1099 : Plywood - Biological durability - Guidance for the assessment of plywood for use in different hazard classes. This annex deals with the application of preservatives to plywood.
• In general, European Standards are performance based; i.e. panels are classified in terms of their intended end use conditions. This is a different approach from that taken by past British Standards, where plywood was classified according to its property levels. Some test methods have also changed.