EPAQ Third Parties

EPAQ Third Parties working together with PPA-Europe are testing laboratories, auditing bodies and experts with very good knowledge on sandwich panels and profiles. They are working independently from the industry to ensure objective results and a high-quality, under the Quality Label EPAQ. Many of the EPAQ experts are directly involved in the development of European standards and European recommendations (i.e. CIB and ECCS).

Third Parties are:

Independent laboratories;
Independent experts;
A combination of an experienced independent expert acting together with a not-accepted or possibly not impartial laboratory, or
Independent laboratories or independent auditing bodies for the assessment of the factory production control (FPC).

The tasks of third parties are:

Type testing of mechanical and dimensional characteristics and writing the test report;
Type testing of tightness properties and writing the test report;
Type testing of thermal conductivity and writing the test report;
Evaluation of the results of type testing of mechanical and dimensional characteristics and writing the evaluation report (task only for independent experts);
Checking of the evaluation of the type testing on mechanical and dimensional characteristics and writing the checking report (task only for independent experts of the Quality Committees);
Responsibility for the information in the EPAQ Certification Document (CD) related to the fire behaviour (mainly reaction to fire); analyse of the type testing data for fire characteristics and writing the assessment report (task only for independent experts for fire);
Responsibility for the information in the EPAQ CD related to thermal characteristics; tasks within the EPAQ procedure for obtaining the Lambda and U-values and writing the assessment report (task only for independent experts for thermal characteristics);
Initial inspection, including attending the inspection and writing the assessment report;
Regular testing of mechanical and dimensional characteristics as part of the EQC and writing the test report, the evaluation report and the assessment report for EQC;
Regular testing of thermal conductivity as part of the EQC and writing the test report;
Regular assessment of the FPC as part of the EQC, including attending the assessment and writing the FPC assessment report

Third parties may be recognized for one or more of the above tasks with regard to sandwich panels and/or profiles.