Since joining the European Union (EU) in the 1970’s, there has been a requirement to harmonise standards across the EU to remove the barriers to free trade. British Standards (BS4737, BS7042 and BS6799) which used to govern the specification, installation and maintenance of Intruder and Hold-up Alarm systems were phased out in favour of European Norms, known as EN50131. These replaced British Standards on 1st October 2005 and are supplemented by the Published Document (PD) PD6662.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD INFORMATION ON EN50131 / PD6662 

EN 50131 is one of several groups of standards being introduced. These are:

EN 50130 - Environmental and EMC requirements
EN 50131 - Intrusion systems
EN 50132 - CCTV
EN 50133 - Access Control
EN 50134 - Social Alarms
EN 50135 - Hold-Up Alarms
EN 50136 - Alarm Transmission Systems (i.e. signalling to the ARC)
EN 50137 - Combined or Integrated Systems
EN 54 - Fire Detection and Fire Alarm Systems

These were created for three main reasons. Firstly to enable manufacturers to sell security products in all EU countries. Secondly so that installation companies and engineers could work in any country and thirdly to make it easy for customers to judge the quality of products sourced from any EU country.

EN 50131 is divided into seven parts:

EN 50131-1 - General Requirements
EN 50131-2 - Intrusion Detectors
EN 50131-3 - Control and Indicating Equipment (Panels & Keypads) 
EN 50131-4 - Warning Devices (i.e. bells and sounders)
EN 50131-5 - Interconnections (i.e. how detectors talk to panels)
EN 50131-6 - Power Supplies
EN 50131-7 - Application Guidelines (i.e. installation and maintenance)