Location of smoke within bedroom

[mikeholz2]

I'm wondering where others are mounting smoke alarms inside bedrooms during new construction. One of my reference books (Residential Wiring by Delmar Publishing) clearly states that the smoke should be as close to the middle of the bedroom as possible. Our local city inspector, however, wants the smokes to be close to the bedroom door.
This same city wants all bedrooms in new construction to have fan rated ceiling boxes. Could the inspector's logic go something like this? "If the homeowner should take advantage of the fan rated box and mount a fan, then a smoke mounted in the middle of the room would be ineffective."

What are others doing?

 

[bphgravity]

Re: Location of smoke within bedroom

Life Safety Code requires the Smoke Detector to be at the highest point on the ceiling nearest to entry of smoke. Where things get funny are when you have sloped or raised celings. I place my smokes at about 16" from the wall line above the door. The code does not require this box to be fan rated, and it is very hard to enforce what someone may do in the future.

 

[pwood]

Re: Location of smoke within bedroom

mikeholz2,
the building code requirement states per this code and manufacturer's installation instructions.if your inspector has a preferred location;humor him!or show him the listing.smoke alarms shall be audible in all sleeping rooms of the dwelling.if you sleep thru a smoke detector sounding off anywhere in your room; you have a really big room or your really drunk!

 

[luke warmwater]

Re: Location of smoke within bedroom

The only requirement I ever see here insided the bedrooms is the smoke must be at least 3 feet from a cold air return. Other than that, they go by manufacturers specs.
One tract home contractor used to mount all of the smokes on the wall, about 12-16" down from ceiling. They had to go back in 12-15 houses and re-wire them so that they were in the ceiling because that's where the manufacturer recommended them to be.

 

[hornetd]

Re: Location of smoke within bedroom

Originally posted by pwood:
mikeholz2,
The building code requirement states per this code and manufacturer's installation instructions.if your inspector has a preferred location;humor him!or show him the listing.smoke alarms shall be audible in all sleeping rooms of the dwelling.if you sleep thru a smoke detector sounding off anywhere in your room; you have a really big room or your really drunk!

I'm not trying to bust anyones chops when I say do not forget the hearing impaired. I have installed small lighting contactors in homes with hearing impaired occupants so that some of the lighting only branch circuits would function as three way switch circuits. The controls then flash the lights either on or off in different patterns for the doorbell, telephone, and smoke detectors. One inspector ruled that I had installed an unlisted fire alarm system but his chief inspector over ruled him.
--
Tom

 

[harold endean]

Re: Location of smoke within bedroom

Here in NJ the fire subcode offical (FSO)will do a plan review and look at the blueprint to a house. He will mark on the blueprint where he wants the smoke detectors to go. He will follow, NEC, NFPA, and local codes, so there is a reason as to where something can or can not go. The biggest problem I see if that people install the smoke detectors too close to air registers. Then the FSO will ask to look at the manufactures directions. If the manufacture allows the smokes to be closer than 3 feet to a register, then he would most likely let it go. However if the manufacture requires more than 3 feet, then you might be moving your smoke detector.

 

[russellroberts]

Re: Location of smoke within bedroom

An Atlanta tv station did a story on smoke alarms recently.An AFD official and an inspector from the state fire marshalls office went to 2 houses,both 2 yrs. old or less.They wanted to see a childs reaction to a smoke alarm going off.these were hardwired smoke alarms,wired together.Both guys verified that the smokes were installed code legal and were in good working order. In the first house 3 children were involved. 1 woke up after 2 minutes,the other 2 were awakened by there mother after 5 min. Basically the same story in the 2nd house.This was with smokes in the bedrooms where the kids were! I don't know what this says,but I was very surprised.

 

[iwire]

Re: Location of smoke within bedroom

Originally posted by russellroberts:
In the first house 3 children were involved. 1 woke up after 2 minutes,the other 2 were awakened by there mother after 5 min. Basically the same story in the 2nd house.This was with smokes in the bedrooms where the kids were! I don't know what this says,but I was very surprised.

Thats scary I installed smokes in my 2 and 4 year olds bedrooms thinking they could not sleep thru the noise, but then the 4 year old can sleep with the 2 year old right beside her crying as loud as she can. (to my ears the crying is louder then the smoke detector)

What else can we do?

 

[hornetd]

Re: Location of smoke within bedroom

Detectors designed for the hearing impaired that flash a strobe might work but I would want to know that the strobe light would not cause harm to the children. Mattress and pillow shakers are also available but the cost is somewhat high.
--
Tom