Lehi, UT Noise from Specific Sources: Car Alarm Limits (2026)

Lehi City Code § 5-3-7(A)(4) lists 'sounds giving warning of emergencies including fire and burglar alarms' among the noise sources exempted from the chapter's decibel limits, but the same subsection expressly excludes 'continuous vehicle alarms' from that exemption. That means a car alarm sounding without stopping is not shielded the way a building's fire or burglar alarm is, and it must instead comply with the ordinary zone-based day and night decibel tables in § 5-3-6, the same tables that cap residential noise at 85 dBA by day and 55 dBA at night.

Because the noise chapter defines 'intermittent noise' as having an on-cycle of 10 percent or less and a maximum continuous duration of six minutes under § 5-3-3, a car alarm that keeps re-triggering past that window, or that otherwise exceeds the applicable table for at least 30 continuous seconds under the § 5-3-5 measurement rule, is measured and cited like any other violation. The exemption list and its vehicle-alarm carve-out were carried forward into the chapter's most recent amendment, Ordinance 04-2026, adopted February 10, 2026.