🌡️ Measurement of the temperature of water and waste water — PN-77/C-04584 (standard WITHDRAWN, no successor indicated)

Environment PN-77/C-04584

Overview

STATUS OF THE DOCUMENT: STANDARD WITHDRAWN. The PKN catalogue card gives: "Number: PN-C-04584:1977 - Polish version", "Title: Water and waste water -- Measurement of temperature", "Publication date: 30-12-1977", "Withdrawal date: 16-01-2006", "Replaces: PN-C-04584:1954 - Polish version", ICS 13.060.60. The card has the heading "Withdrawn" — but it DOES NOT HAVE the row "Replaced by". This is not an oversight in reading: the replacement row does not appear on this card at all, whereas on the cards of the other withdrawn standards that we checked for this study it appears normally. The accreditation scopes record this standard in the older scheme, with the year before the number (PN-77/C-04584), and the PKN card — in the newer one (PN-C-04584:1977).

WHY THIS ENTRY WAS CREATED — AND WHY THIS ONE IS THE FIRST. MEASUREMENT ON THE DATABASE OF ACCREDITATION SCOPES (reading of 23.09.2026, 62 896 entries in the copy) — GIVEN IN THREE FORMS, BECAUSE THREE DIFFERENT QUESTIONS GIVE THREE DIFFERENT NUMBERS HERE, AND WITHOUT NAMING THE QUESTION THEY LOOK CONTRADICTORY: • by ALL forms of notation of the core "C-04584" (27 different forms; excluding PN-G-04584, which is a different standard) — 414 entries at 157 laboratories; • by the BEGINNING of the notation "PN-77/C-04584", i.e. the way the "Laboratories" tab searches for this entry — 328 entries at 130 laboratories; • the form "PN-77/C-04584" alone as an exact string — 324 OCCURRENCES, and this is not the number of entries: four notations have a further addition after this string, for example "(zakres stały)" [fixed range]. This is the largest single gap in this knowledge base. The standard has been withdrawn for twenty years, and the citation lives a life of its own: the 2021 price list of the Central Laboratory of ZWiK Szczecin has the row "Physico-chemical tests | Temperature of the sample taken | PN-77/C-04584 | water, water for human consumption" — i.e. fifteen years after the withdrawal. This is not a reproach against the laboratory; it is a description of a state in which a designation copied into documentation before the withdrawal has no reason to disappear by itself.

WHAT REPLACED IT — THE ANSWER IS NOT IN THE CATALOGUE OF STANDARDS, BUT IN THE REGULATION. The Regulation of the Minister of Maritime Economy and Inland Navigation of 12 July 2019 (Journal of Laws 2019 item 1311) in § 18 requires the use of the reference methodologies from Annex No. 12. The row of this annex for temperature reads (our translation of the Polish text): "Temperature – thermometry, in situ measurement during sampling", and the "Standard" column contains a DASH. So the legal act in force indicates for temperature a TECHNIQUE and the CONDITION FOR CARRYING IT OUT, but does not require any reference document. The absence of a successor on the PKN card is therefore not a gap in the catalogue — it is the actual state.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE LABORATORY. In the accreditation scope there is nothing to update to a newer number, because there is no such number. A laboratory that has "PN-77/C-04584" in its scope will not find a replacing standard, however hard it looks — and therefore the reference document for this determination must be agreed with the accreditation body, not chosen independently on the basis of similarity of scope. The candidates that suggest themselves from proximity in the scopes (PN-EN ISO 5667-1, PN-ISO 5667-10) have sampling in their TITLES, not temperature measurement — and we do not enter this link. Reservation: we checked the titles and catalogue cards, not the texts of these standards, so we do not know whether one of them describes measurements made during sampling (temperature and pH are sometimes discussed in sampling standards as field determinations). The absence of a successor here follows from Annex No. 12, not from our assessment of the scope of these two standards.

THE CONDITION THAT IS THE CONTENT OF THIS DETERMINATION: IN SITU MEASUREMENT. Annex No. 12 states explicitly that the measurement is made "in situ during sampling". This is not an organisational detail — the temperature measured in the laboratory after transport of the sample is a different quantity from the temperature of the waste water at the place and moment of sampling. The regulation treats this consistently: in the definition of the average sample it stipulates that it is formed by mixing samples taken manually or automatically "with the exception of determining the pH value and temperature". Temperature is therefore not determined from a 24-hour average sample — unlike most other parameters in the same act.

FREQUENCY AND METHOD OF ASSESSMENT ACCORDING TO THE SAME ACT. The regulation provides that "each value of temperature and pH measured manually or automatically over a 24-hour period, at intervals of not more than two hours" is included in the assessment. The highest permissible value for industrial waste water is 35 °C and applies to all types of waste water and all sectors; it is stipulated separately that cooling water from open and semi-open circuits may be discharged into waters or into the ground provided that its temperature is not higher than 35 °C.

WHAT WE DO NOT GIVE. We did not have the text of PN-77/C-04584 — PKN makes standards available for a fee, and this one is withdrawn, so it is not on sale. We therefore do not know what measurement accuracy, what type of thermometer or what immersion depth the standard itself provided for, and we do not know whether results obtained according to it differ in any way from a result obtained in accordance with today's requirement of the regulation. Everything written above about the way the measurement is carried out comes from the legal act in force, not from the withdrawn standard.

HOW MANY LABORATORIES THE TAB WILL NOT SHOW (23.09.2026). Measurement (23.09, copy of the scopes): "PN-77/C-04584" stands at the BEGINNING of the value in 328 entries at 130 laboratories — these are shown by the tab, because it matches the designation by the beginning of the value. A FURTHER 29 LABORATORIES HAVE THIS STANDARD IN THEIR SCOPE, BUT NEVER AT THE BEGINNING OF THE VALUE — and each for one reason (checked: none belongs to two groups): 18 — the designation stands in the middle of the value, after another standard (most often after a sampling standard); 4 — notation in the new convention "PN-C-04584:1977"; 7 — distorted prefix: "PN/77/C-04584", "PN -77/C-04584", "PN-77 C-04584", "PN-77/C- 04584", "PN-77/C/04584", "PN-77/C04584". Each group was determined by a NAMED form of notation, and the whole by a pattern: the series letter C, followed by a hyphen, slash or space — also with a space after the hyphen — or nothing, and the number 04584. THE PORTAL SEARCH ENGINE FINDS SOME OF THEM — DEPENDING ON THE QUERY (23.09.2026; the search engine searches for each word of the query as a phrase in the text of the scope): the full designation "PN-77/C-04584" finds 18 of these 29 laboratories — exactly those in which the designation stands after another standard; the element "C-04584" alone — 26; the number "04584" alone — 28, but then also laboratories with the standard PN-G-04584. The tab shows none of them. WHEN COUNTING, BEWARE OF A FOREIGN SERIES WITH THE SAME NUMBER: searching by "04584" alone pulls in PN-G-04584 — a standard of the G series, occurring at 52 laboratories, which has nothing to do with water temperature. The pattern must contain the series letter ("C-04584"), otherwise the number rises from 29 to 62 and is wholly untrue. THE DESIGNATION IN THE MIDDLE OF THE VALUE IS REGULAR HERE: temperature measurement is sometimes recorded together with a SAMPLING standard, in one value and in this order — "PN-ISO 5667-10:2021-11 PN-77/C-04584" (30 entries), "PN-ISO 5667-5:2017-10 PN-77/C-04584" (11), "PN-ISO 5667-11:2017-10 PN-77/C-04584" (2), "PN-EN ISO 19458:2007 PN-77/C-04584" (2). Annex No. 12 requires temperature to be measured "in situ during sampling", and in these notations both standards stand in one string — the measurement standard at the end of the value. A FIX BY KEY IS IMPOSSIBLE, because these notations have no common beginning; a change would require matching by the content of the value, i.e. a change in the program. The number lost is recorded so that 130 is not taken as the whole.

Method principle

Measurement of the temperature of water or waste water carried out with a thermometer directly in the medium under test, at the place and moment of sampling (in situ). The measured quantity is the temperature of the sample at the sampling point, not the temperature of the sample delivered to the laboratory — therefore this determination, unlike most physicochemical parameters, cannot be carried out on a 24-hour average sample or on a transported sample.

The entry concerns the STATUS of the reference document, not the laboratory activity: the standard was withdrawn on 16-01-2006 without a successor being indicated, and the technique and the condition for carrying it out are today specified by the regulation on waste water in force.

Applications

• Identifying an outdated citation of PN-77/C-04584 in the accreditation scope of a laboratory
• Establishing why no replacing standard can be indicated for this determination
• Reading reports and documentation dated before 16-01-2006 and issued later citing this standard
• Distinguishing an in situ measurement during sampling from a measurement made in the laboratory after transport of the sample
• Checking that temperature is not determined from a 24-hour average sample contrary to the regulation

Key parameters

Standard

Standard number

PN-77/C-04584 (PN-C-04584:1977, wersja polska)

Title (PL)

Woda i ścieki — Pomiar temperatury

Title (EN)

Water and waste water — Measurement of temperature

Step-by-step procedure

1. Identifying the citation

   Find in the accreditation scope, in the test procedure or in the report the number PN-77/C-04584 (also found in the notation PN-C-04584:1977).

2. Checking the date of the document in which the citation stands

   A citation in a document dated before 16-01-2006 was correct at the time of issue. A citation in a later document is outdated — but not through the fault of the laboratory, because the card does not indicate what to replace it with.

3. Establishing what to replace it with — and accepting that there is no standard

   Check the PKN catalogue card: no row "Replaced by". Check Annex No. 12 to Journal of Laws 2019 item 1311: for temperature a technique is given, and in the "Standard" column there is a dash. Do not choose a successor from similarity of scope — the standards of the PN-ISO 5667 series have sampling in their titles; we did not check their texts.

4. Agreeing the reference document with the accreditation body

   Since the legal act does not indicate a standard, the reference document for this determination (own procedure or another solution) is agreed with the accreditation body. This is the only way that does not rely on guessing.

5. Checking how the measurement is carried out

   Make sure that the measurement is made in situ during sampling, not in the laboratory after transport, and that temperature is not determined from a 24-hour average sample — the regulation excludes pH and temperature from the average sample.

6. Checking frequency and assessment

   When assessing the compliance of waste water, check that the values are collected at intervals of not more than two hours over a 24-hour period, in accordance with the regulation.

Required equipment and apparatus

Reagents, media and consumables

Health and safety (OHS)

• The entry concerns the status of the reference document, not a laboratory activity — safety rules for sampling waste water are set by the sampling procedures and the health and safety regulations of the plant
• Testing must not be carried out according to a withdrawn standard with the result described as compliant with a reference document in force
• A successor of the standard must not be indicated on the basis of similarity of scope — if the card and the legal act do not indicate a document, this must be said plainly

Frequently asked questions