Greenville, NC Building Safety: Carbon Monoxide Detectors (2026)

Section 9-1-97(B) of the Greenville City Code targets the specific fire-risk conditions that produce carbon monoxide: any dwelling with a fossil-fuel burning heater, appliance, or fireplace, and separately, any building or structure with an attached garage where vehicle exhaust can migrate indoors. Those dwellings must maintain a minimum of one operable carbon monoxide detector per level, battery-operated or electrical, carrying a listing from a nationally recognized testing laboratory such as Underwriters Laboratories. The section grandfathers existing installations: any operable carbon monoxide detector installed before January 1, 2010 is deemed compliant even if it does not meet current listing language, so long as it still works.

This sits directly beneath the smoke detector standard in subsection (A) within the same Minimum Housing Code chapter, and the two are cross-referenced: a combination smoke/CO unit that satisfies subsection (B) can substitute for a stand-alone hardwired smoke alarm. Enforcement runs through the same Code Enforcement Supervisor process as the rest of the Minimum Housing Code: a missing or inoperable CO detector found during an inspection is treated as a deficiency that can be folded into a written repair order, with the owner given a set window to correct it before the case moves toward the hearing procedure in Sec. 9-1-111.