The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) recommends placing smoke detectors inside and outside the bedrooms. It also encourages homeowners to place them on any level of the home, including the basement areas. However, knowing Where to Install Bedroom Smoke Detector is key.
So, it would help if you mounted your smoke detector on the ceiling of your bedroom. This is because smoke usually rises; therefore, it makes sense that smoke detectors are installed at a high position.
However, if you install it on a wall, place it less than 12 inches from the ceiling. Also, ensure that you place it away from the air ducts, windows, or any place containing elements that would prevent your detector from sensing smoke.
If you have a fan in the bedroom, always install the smoke detector at least 3 feet away from the fan blades, but maintain positioning it on the ceiling.
It would be best if you placed it away from the fan to avoid any interference in the functioning of your smoke alarm.
Why Is the Location of the Smoke Detector Important?
Wrong positioning of a smoke alarm may result in the device not detecting the smoke on time during a crisis. Therefore, your smoke detector’s location is vital to ensure effective detection during a fire crisis.
Different manufacturers have different recommendations on where to place a smoke alarm in your home.
Note: It is the responsibility of every homeowner to ensure that the location of your smoke detector is in line with any applicable building regulations.
Here are some general tips on how you should position your smoke alarm:
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Flat Ceiling
We always encourage placing the smoke alarm at the center of the ceiling. Always place the alarm at least 300mm from walls and light fittings.
Research shows air does not circulate effectively in corners and objects like light fittings. Because of this, such places and objects may prevent the smoke from entering the sensor chamber.
In turn, this delays or prevents the fire alarm from sounding in case of a crisis.
We also advise placing the detector on the ceiling because hot smoke would rise, then spread out.
Positioning the smoke detector on the ceiling will allow the smoke to reach the sensor’s chamber in the shortest time possible.
Note: If you cannot install it on the ceiling, install the unit up to 575mm below it. It will work just as effectively.
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Sloped Ceiling
If your ceiling is sloped, you must measure the position of the smoke vertically from the peak. Install the smoke alarm within 600mm of the peak.
However, we encourage you to position your detector as centrally to the ceiling as possible.
How Close Should a Smoke Detector Be to a Bedroom Door?
Many homeowners are often challenged on how far from the bedroom door they can place their smoke detectors.
As mentioned earlier, the location of your smoke detector is essential since it determines how efficiently and effectively your alarm will function.
Generally, home safety organizations recommend aligning your smoke detector to the doorway centerline.
They should be no further than at least five feet from the door. The smoke detector should also be positioned at least no closer than 12 inches towards the doorway.
According to the NFPA’s 72nd provision, you will need only one ceiling-mounted smoke detector if the wall section above the door measures more than 24 inches.
On the other hand, if the wall section is thicker than 59 inches, the NFPA demands that the code be evaluated. The evaluation will help identify the need for extra or additional smoke detectors.
NFPA also asserts that your smoke detector should not be 5 feet away from your bedroom door. You should also position it about 12 inches from the doorway.
The association further emphasizes that the maximum distance your alarm can be away from the bedroom door is 20 feet. This applies if you place the detector outside the bedroom or the hallway ceiling.
You’ll find most traditional houses with smoke alarms placed above the doorway as a standard in the back years. However, the effectiveness of the alarm in this position is very questionable.
Now that we know the best location in the bedroom to place the smoke detector, which other areas are good spots to place your smoke detectors?
The doorway’s entrance is among the best places to position your smoke alarm. You should place it approximately 12-24 inches inwards on the door ceiling.
This position is recommended because as soon as smoke enters your room, the sensors in the detector will immediately sense, and the alarm will sound.
If your house’s hallway connects to two or more bedrooms, installing the detector on the hallway’s ceiling would be best.
In such a case, ensure an equal distance for each detector to the connected bedrooms.
Connecting Smoke Detectors on High Ceiling Spaces
NFPA also recommends how to place your smoke detector if your ceiling runs about 10-22 feet high.
Instead of installing regular spot-type smoke detectors, homeowners with such high ceilings are encouraged to look into Aspiring Smoke Detectors (ASD) and optical beam smoke detectors.
Aspiring Smoke Detectors are smoke alarms consisting of a central unit that draws air through its pipes to detect smoke. The pipes contain a nephelometer that detects smoke particles in the air.
Optical Beam smoke detectors use beams of light to sense smoke within a surrounding. It does this through a light obstruction process. The process allows the detector to sense the smoke since it will obstruct the light coming from the beam.
ASDs are primarily used in high-ceiling spaces because they can detect smoke particles.
We have discussed the best places to position our smoke detectors. What if the worst? Where should you not place a smoke detector?
Placing your smoke detector a few feet from the doorway is one of the best positions. However, avoid installing your smoke detectors in the following places:
- Around Ducts and Windows
Placing your smoke detector near a window or duct is considered “bad” because the airflow within the region might prevent the smoke from reaching the sensors. This may cripple your smoke alarm’s ability to function effectively.
- Corners
Placing your detector in the corner of the room is a bad idea as your device may fail to detect the smoke on time. Smoke is designed to rise or travel upwards. Therefore, the higher and further you place the detector, the slower and less urgent it will be.
- Insect-Infested Area
Avoid placing your smoke detectors in areas where insects are prevalent. The presence of insects can block out the sensors of the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
Therefore, an insect-infested area may make your smoke detector inefficient and ineffective.
- Areas near Appliances
Avoid installing your alarm around appliances or a place where normal combustion regularly occurs. These are areas such as furnaces and water heaters.
Locating your alarm near the areas will make it sound false due to temperature fluctuations. Instead of a smoke alarm, use a heat detector in such areas.
- Areas with High Humidity
Areas such as the bathroom, near dishwashers or washing machines are not the best to install smoke alarms. Install your alarm approximately 3 feet away from such appliances
Notably, the steam from the hot shower in the bathroom will also trigger your alarm, thus giving you a false alert. Besides, you don’t want the cost of a prematurely destroyed alarm, do you?
Well! Avoid the bathroom area because the moisture around the area contributes to the quick damage of the alarm.
However, if your home layout will not let you place it in close proximity to the bathroom, ensure that you use a photoelectric smoke alarm. Any smoke alarm within a 20-feet proximity with the bathroom should be a photoelectric type.
- Near Fans
Some houses must have fans on the ceiling due to sweltering weather. However, placing a smoke alarm near the fan may be as bad as not having a functional alarm.
Avoid placing the smoke alarm closer than three feet in a horizontal direction from the blade’s tip of a paddle fan.
Why? The fan will likely blow the smoke away from the alarm, which means your alarm may not sound during a crisis. We want to avoid imagining how dangerous this can be.
- Garages
Avoid placing a smoke alarm near a garage. Typically, garages are never heated or cooled.
Therefore, the temperatures in the garage may be above or below the temperature range designed for the smoke alarm.
Besides, the smoke from the car’s exhaust fumes may make the alarm go off unnecessarily. This may trip and damage the smoke alarm’s sensors.
Use a heat detector in the garage instead of a smoke alarm.
- Unfinished Attics
We’ve mentioned that smoke alarms are not built to work in extreme heat and cold areas. Similarly, they also do not work around areas where smoke and dust are common. The dust will potentially damage the alarm’s sensors.
Like in garages, also use heat detectors in attics.
- Near Fluorescent lights
Avoid placing your smoke alarms more than 1 foot from fluorescent lights. This is because the electrical noise and flickering will interfere with your alarm’s efficiency.
- Near Cooking Appliances
Placing smoke alarms close to cooking appliances like stoves and ovens may result in false alerts from your device. We recommend installing the alarm at least 10 feet away from a cooking appliance to minimize false alerts.
How Many Smoke Detectors Should Be In a Room?
Typically, there may be smoke in one room, yet a detector in the next room fails to detect it.
Besides, if smoke comes from a room with a closed door, it may likely spread gradually, thus delaying the signaling of other sensors.
Because of such cases, NFPA recommends that each room have at least one smoke alarm. One smoke alarm can cover roughly 900 square foot maximum in a room.
The association advises having a smoke alarm on every house level, including basements and sleeping areas.
So, how many smoke detectors do I need in a house?
The number of smoke detectors you need will vary. Different sizes and property layouts will determine the number of smoke detectors required.
Ideally, no area within your house should be outside the range of a smoke detector. If it is, it is unlikely that your alarm will detect smoke in that area.
According to NFPA recommendations, interconnected smoke alarms (hardwired smoke alarms) are the best.
Unlike battery-operated alarms that operate singly, the hardwired alarms work uniformly since when one alarm goes off, it signals the rest, and they will sound too.
Is It Better to Install a Smoke Alarm On a Wall or the Ceiling?
We’ve emphasized that your alarm’s location is crucial as it determines the device’s efficiency. Therefore, the best location to mount your smoke alarm is at the center of the ceiling, not on the wall.
This is because, during a fire, smoke would rise and then spread horizontally. The central placement of the smoke alarm on the ceiling means that it is closest to the four points of your room.
The position ensures that your device will sense any smoke or fire warning at the earliest possible time.
Placing the alarm on the ceiling is also excellent as it does not interfere with what you want to do with your walls, painting, or decorating in any way.
If you are troubled about how you will reach them that high on the ceiling, worry not! Many alarms (particularly the hardwired ones) come with batteries as durable as ten years long.
Besides, you could also use a ladder to reach them if you want to change the batteries constantly.
However, mounting your alarm on the wall is only acceptable if your local building codes will allow it.
How to Install Smoke Detector
Before we learn how to install a smoke detector, it is also paramount to understand its working mechanisms. Smoke detectors are classified into photoelectric, ionization, and dual smoke alarms.
A photoelectric detector is designed to measure light as it hits the smoke detectors. These work best in sensing smoke fires.
On the other hand, ionization detectors will detect smoke soon as it enters the ionization chamber.
Once it enters, the ionized smoke particles will get neutralized, and the drop in electrical current will activate the alarm. This type of detector will respond best to flaming fires.
Lastly, dual-sensor smoke alarms combine the mechanism of photoelectric and ionization smoke alarms.
You will need the following materials to install your smoke alarm
- A smoke detector
- A screwdriver
- A sharp pencil
- A drill
- Plastic wall anchors
- Wall screws
- Wire stripper
- Wire cutter
- Battery
- Wire nuts.
Once you’ve assembled everything ready, begin the process. Follow the following steps to install your smoke detector:
Step 1: Gauge Your Mounting Location
It doesn’t matter if your home has a preexisting alarm system; always look for an area with a potential fire risk to install your alarm.
The NFPA recommends putting the alarm on every level of the house, meaning each area should have at least one smoke detector for effectiveness.
Ensure that all locations in your house are fully covered.
Step 2: Turn Off the Primary Power Source
Always ensure the alarm system is powered off when installing a hardwired smoke detector. Go to your electrical panel, then shut off the breaker tagged ‘fire alarm.’
Also, it could be piggy-backed onto a circuit with lighting. Detach the smoke detector from its base and hold the tester on the wires. This is to ascertain that the circuit is off.
Step 3: Time to Install the Smoke Detector’s Mounting Bracket
Manufacturers usually sell their smoke detectors alongside a mounting bracket. The bracket eases the installation process and the changing of the battery.
To detach it, twist the detector and bracket apart. You will know it has been removed once you feel and hear a loud click.
If your smoke detector is battery-operated, hold the bracket on the ceiling (it’s the best place to install your alarm).
Put the two plastic anchors properly and install the mounting brackets with two screws. Make marks on the ceiling for the two mounting screws with a pencil.
Use a drill compatible with your anchor kit to drill the two holes you’ve just marked carefully.
Caution: Only use a screwdriver to tighten the screws and the crack bracket. This will prevent overtightening. Also, avoid using a drill!
Pro tip: Push your drill through your paper cup bottom. This is to catch drywall dust when drilling over the head.
If your smoke detector is hardwired, please ensure that you mount your bracket on a previously installed electrical box.
All you need to do is to loosen the mounting screws in the electrical box’s corners and put the new bracket in place.
Once you are confident that it has fit perfectly, use a screwdriver to tighten the screws. Be careful not to crack the bracket while screwing.
Step 4: Add Power
Since your battery-operated smoke detectors exclusively use batteries as their power source, you will need to activate the batteries.
Depending on the manufacturer’s unit, yours could use AA, CR123, Or 9V batteries. Begin by opening the battery door. Catch your fingernail or coin under the tab; you’ll see the battery bay.
The bay is marked positive and negative on either side. Follow these markings by installing the batter’s positive (+) end on the positive terminal and the negative (-) end on the negative one.
Examine and record in some safe place the battery your unit is using, just in case you need to replace them.
If your unit has a pull tag, you will only need to remove it to activate the included batteries. Either way, it is always advisable to open the battery door to ensure the batteries are in perfect condition.
To power your hardwired smoke detector, you must first power it off at the breaker, then wire the wiring harness into your system.
We had pulled some wires through the brackets in the previous steps; you now have to tie the wiring harness into these wires. Use a wire stripper to expose the harness wire.
Match the wire colors, then use the wire nuts to infuse the harness wires with the system wires.
Tag the wires to ensure that they are secure. After they are all in place, plug the harness right into the smoke detector.
Note: Marching the wire colors means that if your harness wires are colored black, white, and yellow, you will have to connect them to your system accordingly.
However, if your system has black, white, and red (instead of yellow) wire, you’ll match the red wire with the yellow in a wire nut.
Sounds so straightforward, right? However, unlike battery-operated systems, hardwired detectors will use two power sources.
They are powered by the system wiring and also have battery backups. Therefore, remove a pull tag from the battery casing to activate the batteries.
Your device is now ready for use! Attach it back to the smoke detector base.
Step 5: Attaching the Smoke Detector to the Base
This step is as simple as a twist-lock procedure. We use the anti-clockwise direction to loosen the detector from its base. On the contrary, we will now use the clockwise direction to attach it.
Twist it clockwise until it snaps into place. You may hear a beeping or notice a light up once it is all fixated, don’t panic! That’s how you know it is now functional.
Step 6: Power Up and Test Your Smoke Detector
This step applies to hardwired smoke detectors. We had powered the system off; now it’s time to power it back up. Go back to the electrical panel and flip the breaker into its correct position.
Like the battery, your new detector will produce a beep sound. This is to alert you that it is now functional. You may also notice some LED lights. This is to inform you that your device has enough power.
You will notice a test button on your device. Press and hold it to activate the alarm (it may be too loud for your liking😊).
If the alarm sounds, then you are set and protected! If it doesn’t, then it’s a cause for alarm. Troubleshoot to find out where the problem lies. Here are some tips:
- For the hardwired units, ensure that the breaker is on. If so, shut it and recheck the wiring.
- Check ad ensure that you appropriately installed the batteries. If it still doesn’t work, look up some new batteries.
- Ensure that the smoke detector is appropriately fixed into its base! Some units may only activate if they are attached correctly to the base.
If your device still has a problem after this, then it is likely that the system is flawed. Contact your manufacturer and work something out.
Here’s How to Install Smoke Detector:
Where Should Smoke Detectors be Placed in a 3-Bedroom House?
Suppose you have just acquired a new house and are thinking about smoke alarms; thumbs up! This a small yet so crucial detail that some people tend to ignore.
We mentioned that the NFPA recommends installing a smoke detector on every level of your house.
Each bedroom should have one smoke detector. If your three-bedroom house is a single floor and all the bedrooms are located on one end f the house, you will need at least four smoke detectors.
If the bedrooms share a common hallway, place one smoke alarm directly outside the bedroom and in the hallway.
However, if your house is a two-story and bedrooms are on the same floor, place one additional smoke detector on the other level, one with no bedrooms.
If you have one of the bedrooms separate from the rest, then it is right that you place an extra smoke detector outside this sleeping room.
How Many Smoke Detectors Should Be In a 2-Bedroom House?
The number of smoke detectors you will need in your house is determined by its architectural design or layout. In the two bedroom-house, ensure that you fit a detector in both the sleeping areas.
If the bedroom doors open from a hallway, then you’ll need to situate one smoke detector in this hallway. Ensure that you centrally position the detector between your bedroom doors.
Lastly, you will need to install the smoke detector if a room is located on the path between a sleeping area and the closest exit door. This will enhance your home’s safety.
Don’t forget that if your house has different levels, you need smoke detectors on every level. It doesn’t matter if a level has a sleeping area or not. Put an alarm even in an unfinished basement area. There is no such thing as having too many smoke detectors!
Summarily, you will need a minimum of five smoke detectors in a two-bedroom house.
Final Thoughts
Kudos! You’ve read this article to the end, meaning that you have the best interests of your home and loved ones at heart.
So, if you are thinking of installing a smoke alarm in your house, it is important that you know…
Where to Install Bedroom Smoke Detector
Well, the ceiling is the best place to place your smoke alarm.
This is because smoke naturally rises, and the ceiling is the highest position in your room.
Installing the device up there means it will immediately sense fire danger as the smoke will enter the alarm’s sensors as soon as possible.
As you try installing your smoke detector, remember that positioning is crucial as it determines how effectively and efficiently your device will work.
All the best as you fix or replace your smoke detector in different areas of your house.