EN 14437

EN 14437, Determination of the uplift resistance of installed clay or concrete tiles for roofing – Roof system test method, is a European Standard published by CEN. The current edition is EN 14437:2022, which replaced EN 14437:2004. It is adopted nationally as, for example, BS EN 14437 in the UK, NF EN 14437 in France and SS-EN 14437 in Sweden.

Scope

The method establishes how much uplift force an installed tile system can resist. It applies to clay tiles to EN 1304 and concrete tiles to EN 490, whether they are laid without fixings or held by mechanical fixings such as clips, hooks, screws or nails.

It does not apply:

• where fewer than one tile in three is fixed
• to under-and-over tile systems (such as some Roman or Spanish profiles)

A note in the standard says the method can be extended to other discontinuous roof elements, including natural and fibre-cement slates and stone, and, with adaptation, to solar panels fixed into tiled roofs.

How it is used

Results from EN 14437 feed into national calculation methods. In the UK, BS 5534 uses tile uplift resistance data together with wind loads from EN 1991-1-4 and its UK National Annex to determine which tiles must be fixed and with what fixings. Tile and fixing manufacturers use the results to produce fixing tables for different wind zones, roof pitches and building heights.

Why it matters

Single-lap tiles that lock into their neighbours rely partly on their own weight and partly on those side and head locks to resist wind. Testing a whole installed system captures how neighbouring tiles help hold each other down, which a test on a single tile would miss. This is why European practice increasingly calls for fixing schedules based on system tests rather than simple rules of thumb.