In 1990 GAD was implemented but was modified in 1993 by Directive 93/68/EEC to make it a formal “CE Marking” directive and to make the conformity assessment modules more consistent with the other CE marking directives. Before implementation of EU directives each country produced standards for gas appliances and there was a demand for simplifying all different regulations and introduce a new EN standard. In 2009, the Commission introduced 2009/142/EC, a directive which brought together the original text of 90/396/EC and its amendments in a single document and simplified the language. This Directive was introduced on 5 January 2010 and complies to all standards in the EU.

The experience from the introduction of GAD in Europe during the implementation of the Gas Appliances Directive showed the need to make some modifications in order to provide clarity and ensure legal certainty particularly with regards to definitions and the scope of the directive. The EU council also understand that there should be greater emphasis on Member States’ communication of the gas supply conditions that are used within their territory. They recognise that the currently published information is often not sufficient enough to allow designers to correctly adjust their appliances to meet the standards across the EU. Going forward, Member States would now need to supply specific parameters that would be defined in Annex II of the regulation.

Bentone has of course been working with the new GAR rules during the last couple of years and the new Gas Appliance Regulation (GAR 2016/426) were implemented on the 21 of April 2018.