JA2014 - Handheld Electric Angle and Straight Grinders

The first Activity on Power tools focused on handheld electric angle and straight grinders and was part of the Joint Market Surveillance Action on GPSD Products – JA2014”, which was co-financed by the European Union.

The twelve participating Market Surveillance Authorities (MSAs) who were involved in this specific Activity were from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany (Bavaria), Finland, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia. 

Objectives

The Product Activity aimed to:

• Ensure that hand-held electric grinders on the EU market were safe and carried the appropriate tool-marking, warnings and instructions;
• Develop best practices and exchange experience by carrying out market surveillance activities for grinders in the consumer ‘do it yourself’ (DIY) market;
• Develop and focus on risk assessment for grinder scenario’s;
• Detect non-compliant and unsafe grinders on the marketplace and take action against them;
• Develop a priority list of Power Tools in general, to be targeted in this and future joint actions.

Final Report

Within the Activity 60 grinders have been sampled at different economic operators in the 12 participating countries, 10 out of them were sampled by internet ordering. Sampling has taken place in the lower end of the market, supposing to find there the most non-compliant grinder-brands. The potentially non-compliant products have been sent for testing and examination at an accredited laboratory, which had been previously selected through a public tendering procedure.

The Final Technical Report of this activity can be downloaded by clicking on the cover page of the report. Very interesting information can be found within this report and it is particularly useful for market surveillance authorities and anybody else concerned to know more about safety aspects of stair gates.