Smoke alarm on a high ceiling

steve66

steve66

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
Engineer
If a house has a 14' peaked ceiling, I guess the smoke alarm has to go up at the top.

It's going to be hard to reach to reset, silence, or change batteries. But I don't think there is any other option.

The peak just happens to be outside a bedroom door, so yes, the detector is required. It's also right in the kitchen/living area, so that is going to be a pain if there are any false alarms.

And if this just happened to be an ADA unit, where the code states that all "controls" have to be at a max. of 48" AFF, then what?

Is there an exception for smoke detectors, since they usually have to be on the ceiling?
 
New stand alone smoke detectors in Illinois are required to have non-replaceable 10 year batteries. The life of the detector is also 10 years.
 
The good part is that the manufacturers all moved to photoelectric alarms that only have to be at least 6 horizontal feet from a cooking appliance, not 20' like the ionization models. That 20' was hard to get in scenarios like you have described.

ADA does not apply to the smoke alarm controls. A normally ambulatory person can't reach it either without assistance = no discrimination.
 
So code wise, its basically OK.

Although with the ADA requirements to also have a visible strobe, I'm also wondering if the strobe will be too high to be readily visible - similar to the way commercial strobes normally have to be mounted at a certain height.

And it will still be a PIA if they every have to silence it.
 
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