smoke detectors in commercial bathrooms

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tonyou812

Senior Member
Location
North New Jersey
I cant ever recall ever having to. Nor do I ever recall seeing any. Maybe on an airplane or school. Hey your from my neck of the woods. Are you keeping busy?
 

resistance

Senior Member
Location
WA
Sounds like a building code question to me. Do they call them smoke detectors in a commercial environment?
 

MNWildcat

Member
Location
IA/MN
Occupation
Prof Engineer
Yes, smoke detectors in bathrooms

Yes, smoke detectors in bathrooms

Yes.
Smoke detectors may be required in a bathroom, for that matter, one could be required anywhere/everywhere.

For example in a hospital for smoke damper control, the damper can be controled by a dedicated duct detector (which are prone to false alarms) or total area detection can be used to close the damper. The total area detection requires a smoke detector in every room fed by the HVAC system, including restroom/toilets.

Though NFPA 72 does state that smoke detectors shall not be installed in areas that are too extreme, so where there are showers the somke detectors may not want to be used due to false alarms (steam looks like smoke to the detector).
 

iMuse97

Senior Member
Location
Chicagoland
Yes.
Smoke detectors may be required in a bathroom, for that matter, one could be required anywhere/everywhere.

For example in a hospital for smoke damper control, the damper can be controled by a dedicated duct detector (which are prone to false alarms) or total area detection can be used to close the damper. The total area detection requires a smoke detector in every room fed by the HVAC system, including restroom/toilets.

Though NFPA 72 does state that smoke detectors shall not be installed in areas that are too extreme, so where there are showers the somke detectors may not want to be used due to false alarms (steam looks like smoke to the detector).

couldn't you install the ionization-type detector in this case?
 

MNWildcat

Member
Location
IA/MN
Occupation
Prof Engineer
No Ions

No Ions

couldn't you install the ionization-type detector in this case?


Ion smokes are still sensitive to high humidity and are not as good as photo types oveall. Also, I would not mix types as having a few ions in some rooms and photos in the rest of the facility. It would be hard for the facility guys to know which is which when they need cleaning/replacement.

Also, there is such a small percentage of the air flow going to a small toilet/shower room relative to the rest of the HVAC zone that other detectors will sense the smoke first anyway.
 
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