Albion Valves (UK) Ltd, an increasingly popular UK valves supplier is advising distributors to ensure they check for type test approvals and certification of the EU’s Pressure Equipment Directive (PED) conformity, when specifying safety valves, as opposed to relief valves in a pressurized system.
Both safety valves and pressure relief valves are used as the last safety device in a pressure system, however engineers and specifiers need to be mindful that requirements can vary significantly from system to system.
In applications where PED is applicable, it is mandatory to use safety valves with the appropriate approvals. If a valve without type test approval is installed there is no guarantee that required blow-off at 10% would be reached, which poses a big safety risk.
In a system that doesn’t fall into this directive, it is at the discretion of the engineer whether or not to use a type test approved safety valve. In this instance, generally a relief valve designed with proportional opening characteristics and therefore a lower blow-off capacity can be safely specified.
However, it is important to realize that the liability for using a non-conforming product rests with the installer, which is why Albion recommends using a certified safety valve wherever possible.
In order to help take the headache out of complex EU legislation compliance away from their distributors, Albion has introduced an extensive range of PED compliant safety products.
Safety valves are all either set, sealed and certified by the factory, or onsite at Albion on a test rig prior to dispatch. Each valve is laser etched with its own unique serial number to allow certification to be traced.
Les Littlewood, Albion Valves (UK) Ltd, Sales Director commented:
“Ensuring that products and systems meet the requirements of the EU Directive can be a complex and time consuming process. We have taken this headache away from our distributors by doing the research and securing approvals to ensure that the pressure equipment we supply is legally compliant and fit for purpose.”
Albion currently stocks over 5000 lines of commercial valves, suitable for applications predominantly within the process, water, building services and HVAC industries, all available from its distributor network.
