Plano, TX Building Safety: Fire Sprinkler Requirements (2026)

City Code of Ordinances Section 6-710, the deletions/additions/amendments division of Article XX (Residential Code), amends the 2024 International Residential Code as adopted under Sec. 6-709. Among the amendments, it provides: "Sec. " The IRC's baseline text would otherwise require automatic fire sprinklers in new one- and two-family homes and townhouses; Plano affirmatively removes that mandate rather than adopting it, meaning the city imposes no local requirement to install residential fire sprinklers in these dwelling types. This tracks Texas's statewide position restricting municipal sprinkler mandates for one- and two-family dwellings; Plano's amendment implements that policy directly in its own code rather than leaving it silent.

The distinction matters for larger residential buildings: elsewhere in the fire code amendments (Sec. 2), Plano requires NFPA 13R sprinkler systems throughout Group R buildings up to four stories where sprinklers are otherwise required, and separately mandates that porches and balconies be sprinklered on Group R-2 and R-3 occupancies where a sprinkler system is installed under the fire code amendments at Sec. 8 of the code. But for a standalone single-family house or duplex, no sprinkler system is triggered by Plano's own Residential Code. Builders and homeowners should not assume a sprinkler installation requirement applies to a typical Plano single-family or duplex permit; the requirement was affirmatively deleted, not merely absent from local amendment.