On 13-14 October 2022 in Palermo, E.D.S.F. and ACMI held their yearly General Assembly together.
A key matter of discussion was the energy efficiency of buildings.
Many countries in the European Union have taken serious measures in this direction, such as Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and others. The governments of these countries grant aid for improving the energy efficiency of buildings, replacing their doors with doors with better insulating qualities, as well as automatic doors.
Similar measures are also expected in Bulgaria, but what should be known by door manufacturers, architects, builders, as well as by every user?
Automatic doors can have an Energy Label, which was developed by the European Federation for Doors and Shutters, to give complete and accurate information about the Energy Efficiency of a door installed on a certain building.
What's the difference between ‚EPD‘ and the E.D.S.F. Energy Label?
In general, an Environmental Product Declaration is a Type III environmental declaration. This only provides quantified environmental information from the life cycle of a product or service in order to enable comparisons between products or services with the same function.
So the EPD of a product is not to be compared with the energy label and vice versa.
For getting an EPD, first a life cycle assessment of the product needs to be done which tells something about the environmental impact the production of a product might have over its full life time (from cradle to grave).
This is a good thing but does that tell something about the energy losses caused by a door during its functional life time?
Knowing that the EPD is looking at used materials (including packing), logistics, production and recyclability of a product? Partly the answer is yes, because the EPD takes U-values and energy consumption of the drive of the door in consideration as well.
What it does not take in consideration is the environment and use case of where the door or shutter is installed.
So, the real answer to the question is “NO” and therefore the E.D.S.F. have developed the energy label for doors and shutters.
For more information on the label and the instrument used to issue it, check out E.D.S.F.'s websitehttps://www.edsf.com/home).
ARP OOD recommends using the energy label of E.D.S.F.
