CE marking is a mandatory conformance mark on many products placed on the single market in the European Economic Area (EEA) - CE stands for conformité européenne, French for "European conformity". The CE marking certifies that a product has met EU consumer safety, health or environmental requirements and, by affixing this mark to a product, the manufacturer – on his sole responsibility – declares that it meets these standards.

At present, CE marking in the UK is voluntary and expectation is by 2013, CE marking of all relevant construction products will become compulsory in all EU member states and will include doorsets.

With the benefits of CE marked doorsets clearly apparent they are fully expected to become the default requirement for major projects such as schools, hospitals and other public buildings and that CE marked doorsets will be the preferred specification for general applications as they offer many advantages compared with door assemblies created on site from separately sourced components. These door assemblies cannot be CE marked and, even with a door assembly comprising components previously forming part of a CE marked doorset, they may not be compatible, therefore it cannot be assumed that this is in any way equivalent to obtaining a CE marked doorset from a single source.

Leaderflush Shapland, the UK’s leading performance doorset manufacturer, sees CE marking as a positive step and is working in conjunction with the Door and Hardware Federation (DHF) to promote the benefits to architects, specifiers, designers, contractors and end-users.

Ray Anning, Leaderflush Shapland’s Head of Technical and NPD explained why the company is giving its full support to the new standard, “CE marking will mean that one manufacturer alone is responsible and accountable for the performance and certification of the entire doorset and ironmongery assembly and that compatibility of all the components is assured.

“It also considerably improves on-site logistics leading to faster and more accurate installation and reducing potential health and safety issues with site work and assembly.”

Leaderflush Shapland has been a long-time advocate of the doorset as a fully finished, engineered element comprising frame, pre-hung door leaf (with any vision panels) and essential ironmongery, all matched and pre-assembled in the factory and delivered to site as a package for reassembly and simple installation. Their doorsets are designed as complete, engineered units to meet specific performance requirements and manufactured to exacting standards from established components under factory conditions.

The importance of doorsets is also acknowledged in many common guidance documents including HTM 58 ‘Internal doorsets’, SSLD 7 ‘Internal doorsets in schools’ and by BS 8214: 1990 'Code of practice for fire door assemblies with non-metallic leaves': "It is strongly recommended that pre-hung, pre-finished, fire doors (i.e. doorsets) are specified whenever possible as this reduces the amount of site work necessary and allows normal factory quality control procedures to be applied to the finishing operations."

BS 8214 calls for testing of complete fire door assemblies or doorsets, fully representative of all aspects of how they will be used on site. For door assemblies, this is far more problematic with potential for combinations of mismatched, uncertified components and potential for poor site practices. In addition to fire resistance, other performance criteria can be achieved and maintained more easily with doorsets, including smoke containment, sound reduction and durability.