Georgetown, TX Fire Regulations: Smoke Detectors (2026)

3 to spell out exactly where smoke alarms must go in a Georgetown dwelling. Alarms are required in each sleeping room, outside each separate sleeping area in the immediate vicinity of the bedrooms, and on each additional story of the dwelling, including basements and habitable attics, but not crawl spaces or uninhabitable attics. Split-level homes get a narrow exception: a single alarm on the upper level covers the adjacent lower level if there's no door between them and the lower level sits less than one full story down.

The amendment also fixes placement distances that installers often get wrong: an alarm can't sit closer than 30 inches to a return air, recirculating, supply air, or mechanical exhaust vent, measured horizontally in all directions, and a door within that 30-inch zone counts as an opening. Alarms marketed as reducing cooking nuisance alarms still can't go closer than 6 feet, measured horizontally, from a permanently installed cooking appliance. The Building and Inspections Department enforces the placement rule through the same permit and inspection process that applies to the rest of the Residential Code.