Howard County, MD Fire Regulations: Smoke Detectors (2026)

Howard County does not maintain its own smoke alarm ordinance; it relies on Maryland Public Safety Article Section 9-104, which the Department of Fire and Rescue Services and the Department of Inspections, Licenses and Permits enforce locally. Subsection (a) requires at least one smoke alarm in every residential sleeping area, and sets the required power source by construction date: battery-powered or AC-wired units in one- and two-family dwellings built before July 1, 1975; AC-wired units in dwellings built between July 1, 1975 and June 30, 1990; AC-wired units in multifamily occupancies such as apartments, lodging houses, dormitories and hotels; and AC power with battery backup or another approved secondary power source in any residential occupancy built on or after July 1, 1990.

Subsection (b) requires at least one alarm on every level of a residence built on or after January 1, 1989, including basements, but excluding unoccupied attics, garages or crawl spaces. Subsection (c) requires that where two or more alarms are required in a unit built after January 1, 1989, activating one alarm must sound all of them. Subsection (d) forces existing homes to upgrade to interconnected, long-life battery or AC-with-backup alarms once installed alarms pass ten years from manufacture, fail an operability test, a tenant turns over without a compliant alarm installed in the prior ten years, or a building permit issues for an added or altered unit.

Section 9-105 adds a duty to equip a room occupied by a deaf, deafblind, or hard-of-hearing resident with a notification appliance suited to alert them. Section 9-106 assigns enforcement to the State Fire Marshal, a county or municipal fire marshal, or the fire chief, and puts installation responsibility on the building permit applicant, or the general contractor when no permit is required.