UL On Alert!

MARKET ALERT...  It’s estimated that in excess of 85% of your customer applications are required to obtain some type of safety agency approval, such as UL/CSA. The cost to complete this process is well into the $10,000’s for even the most basic product approval, many times significantly more costly.

The normal process is for your customer to design in very specific components that you supply. These components are manufactured by a particular company, using very specific materials, electrical ratings, and assembled in a manner consistent with UL/CSA requirements. These various components are designed into the applications, which customers send through the safety agency process at great expense and time. The end result is a product your customers offer to the market with safety agency approvals, both for liability and marketing purposes.

Once approved by various safety agencies, no component, manufacturer, or material can be changed and still maintain the safety agency approval. Should any change be discovered, a product recall can be required by UL. The cost of this can fall back to the supply chain.

This market alert was just brought to the forefront as customers identified a material change within the plastic fan filter market. The fan accessory market has used UL 94V-0 as the product rating. This is the highest rating for issues related to flaming combustion and the exact one used by the manufacturers during the approval process. Current product has now been identified to have lowered that rating to 94V-2, causing all previously approved applications to be in violation of safety agency approvals and subject to possible recall. In addition, new applications that require 94V-0 will not accept the 94V-2 ratings. Continuing to sell/offer this new product under the same part made with the known UL changes does not open up distributors/OEM to potential issues, given this information is known to the market.

Gardtec only uses 94V-0 material for all plastic filter assemblies, so you can feel confident in the overall product quality.

Fan cords, while not part of this market alert, are covered under specific UL/CSA approval files. Gardtec, as the actual manufacturer, maintains all safety agency files on site, open for customer review.

SC120-W5, SC60-W2, SC80-W2, SC92-W2, SC162-W5, CAB704, CAB700, CAB701, CAB702