Not CE approved???

[Old Mill Tree Care]

Simple question chaps.

 

What are the pitfalls of buying an arb product abroad if it doesn't have CE approval?

[RobRainford]

It won't go through LOLER and if you get hurt or someone else does while using it insurance won't touch you!

[Peter]

Depends on the product.

 

If it is PPE that your life depends on, then it needs a CE for legal reasons that are far to boring to go into here.

 

Other kit, rigging gear or wedges or rakes, then go to town!

[treequip]

If you are providing it for employees to use you need to look at PUWER as well as CE.

 

Any prosecution for CE or PUWER breaches will likely come from the HSE. Despite what Rob says your insurers will touch you but you may not like the feel of their hand.

 

If loss occurs because of non compliant kit your insurer will pay third parties (particularly in the case of employers liability) but may recover their losses from you.

[marka]

I work in a different industry, but the rules should be the same.... PUWER will hit you, unless you go through everything and effectively ce mark it yourself. Depending on what the kit is though you will be stuck in a mire of finding what regulations need to be followed, then ensuring compliance. If PUWER doesn't get you then H&S@W act, or industry specific legislation will get you!

I was on a PUWER course not long ago and the unofficial line was 'if nobody gets hurt, nobody cares....' BUT if somebody does get hurt then you are in a world of trouble! We were told that if we were due in court and were able to sleep soundly the night before, then you had possibly done enough!

The fact that you would be knowingly not using CE marked kit would probably stop you sleeping well. Especially if you used this kit because it was cheap.

 

A point to consider though is that most companies self cert for CE. Not all do this as rigorously as they should and may well cut corners. Things like guarding regs and machinery directive are always good fun! Part of PUWER is to check that the CE is actually correct, that they have certified compliance against the correct standards and actually follow these standards.

To bring this back to the subject of the thread, not using ce marked kit could be demonstrated as not showing appropriate due diligence.

[b101uk]

Just remember there is loads of machines etc in use within businesses that pre-date the inception of CE markings.

 

Also if something has CE marks that is NO guarantee that it conforms to the UK standard even though it conforms to the EU standard.

[Gnarlyoak]

I guess it all depends on what your buying and where you're buying it from. If its from the EU then its more than likely it will be CE certified. If its from the States then it will probably be ANSI certified. The ANSI standards are as good as CE standards.

 

A few years ago I bought a bought a Buckingham Versatile harness from Sherrill's in the states. No CE marking but was ANSI certified, and I never had a problem having it passed at a LOLER inspection.

 

Mind you I weigh about 10 stone soaking wet, and as the inspector said to me if its strong enough to support a lard arsed burger snaffling yank (no offence intended to our American cousins ) then it would support my skinny ass all day long.

 

Of course the real irony is that it can have all the certificates in the world, but the item and the material its constructed from was probably all cobbled together in some third world sweat shop. So fingers crossed that that life saving piece of kit your trusting your life on, on tomorrows job was'nt assembled after Miss Wang; or Mr Yip; or schollboy boy Ranjeev Patel had a bad day at work!

[gensetsteve]

If a product has ce on it dont assume its certified. I have seen generators with a ce mark which looked odd not like the official mark. When we looked into it the no on the cert was for a food blender. Apparently ce also means chinese export