The Farmers Mart Apr/May 2014 - Issue 33 | Page 46

FARM BUILDINGS & EQUIPMENT

YorkshireSteelBuildings.co.uk
Quality Buildings...Made in Yorkshire

CE Marking of Farm
Buildings is upon us….
Farmers need to be aware that the
Regulations controlling the design
and manufacturing of Agricultural
Steel Framed Buildings is changing
on July 1st this year. The changes are
significant and will affect any steel
portal framed building produced in a
factory in the UK.
Jonathon Jessop from Bedale based shed
builders Yorkshire Steel Buildings explains
the main issues:Q. Why are the Regulations
changing?
A. There are two things going on here.
Firstly there is a new European Construction
Products Regulation in force that states that
“steel building frames”, (that is to say the
portal columns and rafters that make up a
building) have to be “CE Marked” from 1st
July 2014. This means that the production
of all steel frames must be assessed and
passed by an Independent Body as fit for
purpose. In reality this means your building
manufacturer will have to implement a raft
of quality control measures, procedures,
qualifications & inspections to ensure that
they are producing steel buildings which
are to a high enough standard to achieve
the CE Mark. It will be a criminal offence to

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Apr/May 2014 FarmersMart

supply a steel frame without this CE Mark
after July 1st.
Secondly the British Standard for
designing Agricultural Buildings has been
amended as a result of the aforementioned
European Regulation change and also on
the back of hundreds of Farm Buildings
collapsing under snow over the past few
winters.
BS5502 Part 22,(the Standard in
question), has changed so that there
arenow only two main classifications of Farm
Buildings:-

Class 2 buildingsare those Agricultural
buildings occupied for less than 6 hours per
day at a maximum occupancy of 1 person
/100m² with up to a maximum of 10 people
in the building. Class 2 buildings must be
single storey other than small mezzanine
floors. They must also be located no higher
than 200m above sea level. Finally they
must have no loads applied to them other
than normal environmental loads, i.e. wind &
snow. A Class 2 building will be built to last
20 years and is designed to a lower design
standard to withstand less loading.
Any permanent Agricultural building which
falls outside of the above parameters is a
Class 1 building. A Class 1 building will be
built to last 50 years and is designed to a
higher standard to withstand more loading.
Some examples:
• Small 60’ x 30’ x 12’ Sheep Building
located at 300m above sea level – Class
1
• Grain Store/ Silage Store – any size, any
location – Class 1
• Farm Workshop with solar panels on the
roof – Class 1
• Cattle Shed on level ground, lowland
position – Class 2

To read more, visit www.farmers-mart.co.uk