Does Georgia Require CO Detectors? Local Code Rules Explained

Last verified: August 26, 2026

Georgia carbon monoxide detector laws are primarily implemented through IRC Section R315 as adopted in the state minimum code system and enforced by local jurisdictions. The strongest statewide pathway applies to new one- and two-family dwellings and similar code-triggered residential projects, rather than a broad all-occupancy statute.

For builders and property managers, compliance should begin during permit planning so alarm placement and product selection align with the adopted local edition and amendments. Because enforcement is local, builders should confirm jurisdictional adoption details before construction starts.

Two things follow that a reader is unlikely to find elsewhere. Georgia's amendment to Section R315.1 drops the model code's conditions, so a new dwelling here needs an alarm whether or not it burns anything and whether or not it has a garage. And Section R315.3 does reach existing dwellings, on permitted alterations, repairs or additions or when a sleeping room is added, with exterior work and plumbing or mechanical work carved out. The lodging question is a different matter and remains open: Georgia deletes International Fire Code Sections 915 and 1103.9 outright and sends carbon monoxide to the occupancy chapters of NFPA 101, so whether a Georgia hotel is covered turns on Chapters 28 and 29 of an edition that is not freely readable.

In 60 Seconds

CO detector requirements for Georgia
Applies to homes?	Yes
Applies to rentals?	Yes
Applies to hotels/STRs?	Yes, under a condition
Applies to schools?	Yes, under a condition
Applies to workplaces?	Yes, under a condition

Schools and workplaces

Schools: it depends, and the test is one you can apply to the building itself. Deleting the carbon monoxide section out of the fire code left Georgia stricter than the states that kept it, and Chapter 15 is why. Rule 120-3-3-.04 deletes International Fire Code Section 915 and substitutes one sentence, "Carbon monoxide detection shall be installed in accordance with NFPA 72 where required by the applicable occupancy chapters of NFPA 101", and adopts NFPA 101 in its 2024 edition. For a school the applicable chapters are 14 and 15, and the two carry the same rule word for word. Sections 14.3.4.4.1 and 15.3.4.4.1 require detectors under Section 9.12 in four places, on the ceilings of rooms holding permanently installed fuel-burning appliances, centrally within occupiable spaces served by the first supply air register from a permanently installed fuel-burning HVAC system, centrally within occupiable spaces adjacent to a communicating attached garage, and centrally within occupiable spaces adjacent to an attached garage separated by a wall of gypsum panels. Where a detector goes in on the first limb, 14.3.4.4.2 and 15.3.4.4.2 send the alarm signal automatically to an approved on-site or off-premises location under NFPA 72. Five exemptions follow in each, covering garages themselves and any occupiable space whose communicating garage is an open parking structure or is mechanically ventilated. Chapter 15 covers existing educational occupancies and asks for exactly what Chapter 14 asks of a new one, so a Georgia school built in 1968 with a fuel-fired boiler owes a ceiling detector in the boiler room and an automatic signal out of it. That is the opposite of what deleting Section 915 looks like from the outside, and it is stricter than the I-Code states, whose retrofit provision reaches nothing educational before the 2021 edition.

Workplaces: it depends, and the test is one you can apply to the building itself. Assembly is the one workplace Georgia's route reaches, and it reaches it because NFPA 101 is organised by occupancy rather than by a group list. Rule 120-3-3-.04 removed International Fire Code Section 915 in its entirety, so there is no Group B, F, M or S list in force here to read; what governs is whatever the applicable occupancy chapter of the 2024 NFPA 101 requires. The business, mercantile, industrial and storage chapters require nothing, so an office, a shop, a factory and a warehouse are outside. Assembly is not. Section 12.3.4.4.1 requires carbon monoxide detection and warning equipment in a new assembly occupancy in rooms holding permanently installed fuel-burning appliances or fireplaces, centrally within occupiable spaces served by the first supply air register from a permanently installed fuel-burning HVAC system, and centrally within occupiable spaces adjacent to an attached garage. Section 13.3.4.4.1 says the same for an existing assembly occupancy and is new in the 2024 edition, so it arrived with the edition Georgia adopts. Both exempt the garage limb where the garage is an open parking structure or is mechanically ventilated. A restaurant, a nightclub, a theatre or a place of worship with a gas kitchen or a gas-fired furnace therefore carries a duty in Georgia that the same building would not carry in an International Fire Code state, where Section 915.1.1 names Group I and R and Group E classrooms and never names Group A.

When Are CO Alarms Required?

New construction
State requirement is implemented via the Georgia International Residential Code (IRC) with Georgia State Amendments; local governments enforce through permitting/inspection when the code is adopted locally.
Scope follows the code itself rather than a separate statute: the Georgia State Minimum Standard One and Two Family Dwelling Code governs one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses of not more than three stories, adopted under Ga. Code Ann. 8-2-20.
Georgia rewrote the model trigger rather than adopting it. The State Amendments to the IRC revise R315.1 to read that for new construction an approved carbon monoxide alarm shall be installed outside of each sleeping area in the immediate vicinity of the bedrooms in dwelling units, with no condition attached. The model code asks for an alarm only where the dwelling contains a fuel-fired appliance or has a communicating attached garage; the Georgia text drops both, so a new all-electric Georgia dwelling with no garage still takes an alarm. Confirmed in the 2020 amendment set, effective 1 January 2020, whose revised R315.2.1 reads in full: for new construction, carbon monoxide alarms shall be provided in dwelling units. A 2018 amendment report had proposed restoring the two model conditions and was marked proposed only; the adopted 2020 text drops them, so the unconditional reading is the current one.

Where to Install CO Alarms

Provide CO alarms in dwelling units for new construction under the adopted Georgia IRC Section R315, whose placement wording Georgia amended and which is set out precisely in the next line; the manufacturer's instructions govern the rest of the installation.
Outside of each sleeping area in the immediate vicinity of the bedrooms, in dwelling units, under Georgia's amended Section R315.1. That is the placement wording Georgia adopted; summaries describing it as detectors in general sleeping areas are looser than the code and would put a device in the wrong room.
Existing dwellings are reached under Georgia's amended Section R315.3: when alterations, repairs or additions requiring a permit occur, or when one or more sleeping rooms are added or created, the individual dwelling unit must be equipped with alarms in accordance with R315.1. Two exceptions are written into it. Work on exterior surfaces is exempt, meaning roofing, siding, windows, doors, a porch or a deck. So is the installation, alteration or repair of plumbing or mechanical systems, which is the exception that surprises people, because replacing a furnace is precisely the work a reader assumes would trigger it.

For detailed placement guidance beyond legal requirements, see where to place carbon monoxide detectors.

Device Requirements

CO alarms required by Georgia IRC Section R315 for new construction; device type/power method must comply with the adopted code edition and manufacturer's instructions.

Landlord and Tenant Responsibilities

Landlord: For rental homes/units, keep the dwelling compliant with locally enforced Georgia IRC requirements (including required CO alarms for new construction where applicable). Provision: Modifications to IFC Chapter 9 item 21 (Section 915 deleted and replaced), Modifications to IFC Chapter 11 item 5 (Section 1103.9 deleted and replaced), the adopted-standards list at NFPA 101 2024 Edition, and Modifications to NFPA 101 Chapters 28 and 29. Through that adoption the operative lodging provisions are NFPA 101 Section 28.3.4.7 for new hotels and dormitories, including Section 28.3.4.7.1, and Section 29.3.4.6 for existing ones, including Section 29.3.4.6.1, neither of which Georgia amends..

Tenant: Test/maintain alarms per manufacturer instructions and promptly report deficiencies to the property owner/manager. Provision: Modifications to IFC Chapter 9 item 21 (Section 915 deleted and replaced), Modifications to IFC Chapter 11 item 5 (Section 1103.9 deleted and replaced), the adopted-standards list at NFPA 101 2024 Edition, and Modifications to NFPA 101 Chapters 28 and 29. Through that adoption the operative lodging provisions are NFPA 101 Section 28.3.4.7 for new hotels and dormitories, including Section 28.3.4.7.1, and Section 29.3.4.6 for existing ones, including Section 29.3.4.6.1, neither of which Georgia amends..

Georgia uses a state minimum standard code framework; local jurisdictions adopt/enforce. Local amendments may add requirements.
Georgia's IRC-based requirement cited here reaches one- and two-family dwellings and townhomes of three stories or fewer, not hotels, so it answers the residential question and leaves the lodging one open.
The lodging answer is not in the sources below and nobody here has read it. Rule 120-3-3-.04 deletes IFC Sections 915 and 1103.9 and sends carbon monoxide to the occupancy chapters of NFPA 101, which Georgia adopts in its 2024 edition. Chapters 28 and 29 of that edition decide both whether a Georgia hotel is covered and whether an existing one is, and the edition is not freely retrievable: the Internet Archive's Public.Resource.Org collection holds NFPA 101 in 2000, 2003, 2006 and 2012 only, and every automated route to a later edition is gated.

Full Georgia landlord and tenant carbon monoxide duties, with citations

Enforcement

Enforced by: Local building department / code enforcement authority (permitted construction and inspections) under the locally adopted Georgia State Minimum Standard codes.

Enforcement typically occurs:

During building permitting and inspections for new construction.
During certificate of occupancy processes where applicable.

Because local adoption/enforcement can vary, always verify the code edition and amendments in force for the specific jurisdiction.

What a Tenant Can Do in Georgia

Read this before the table:Georgia's carbon monoxide duty arrives through Section R315 of the International Residential Code as adopted in the state minimum standard codes, and that code creates no tenant remedy, so every row below has to come from Title 44 Chapter 7. Read what that chapter is before reading the rows. It is a chapter of landlord duties with a money penalty attached to retaliation, and it is not a chapter of tenant self-help. That leaves Georgia with four of the five columns below empty, more than any state in the fifty-one except Arkansas, whose row is empty in all five. The 2024 Safe at Home Act proves the point rather than breaking it. House Bill 404 was the largest tenant-side amendment Chapter 7 has had in a generation, and what Section 2 of it added at 44-7-13(b) is a deemed contract term: any agreement for the use or rental of real property as a dwelling place "is deemed to include a provision that the premises is fit for human habitation." It added no withholding, no deduction and no termination right. A Georgia tenant with a dead alarm argues breach of a term of the lease, not breach of a statute that hands them something to do about it. Two limits on that route sit in the Act itself and both matter here. Section 6 confines the whole Act to "residential lease agreements that are entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2024", so a tenant still holding an older unrenewed lease does not have 44-7-13(b) at all. And Section 2 left the operative verb without a deadline. It substituted "shall" for "must" in 44-7-13(a), the landlord shall keep the premises in repair, and fixed no number of days, which is why the cure period below is a duty with a null day count rather than a period. The one place money changes hands is retaliation, and for a reported alarm it is the whole remedy. 44-7-24(b) protects a tenant who gave the landlord notice to repair or who complained in good faith to a government agency about a building or housing code violation, which is what reporting a dead carbon monoxide alarm to a code office is. 44-7-24(c) then bars the landlord for three months from filing a dispossessory, depriving the tenant of the use of the premises, decreasing services, raising the rent or terminating the lease in response, and 44-7-24(e) gives a civil penalty of one month's rent plus $500.00, court costs, attorney's fees where the conduct was willful, wanton or malicious, and declaratory relief, with retaliation also available as a defence to the dispossessory itself. 44-7-24(d) carves the ordinary cases back out, so a nonpayment eviction is untouched by any of it. The four none_found rows are negatives with a control behind them rather than an empty search. The same read of Chapter 7 returned three things a silent index would not have produced: a statutory day count at 44-7-50(c), three business days for a tenant to pay all past due rent, late fees, utilities and other charges or vacate before a dispossessory for nonpayment, added by Section 5 of the same Act; a criminal provision at 44-7-14.1 making it unlawful for a landlord knowingly and willfully to suspend utilities until a dispossessory is finally disposed of, with cooling added beside heat, light and water by Section 3; and a new security deposit ceiling of two months' rent at 44-7-30.1, created by Section 4. The chapter answers when it has something to say. On withholding, deduction and habitability termination it has nothing. Ohio is the contrast worth holding beside this, because the two states start in the same place and end in opposite ones. Both route carbon monoxide through a code that creates no remedy of its own. Ohio's general landlord-tenant statute then hands a tenant three named routes at ORC 5321.07(B) and takes all three away from two large classes, small landlords who give written notice and student tenants. Georgia hands none to anybody and answers the same problem by penalising the landlord who punishes the tenant for asking. Senate Bill 239 of the 2023-2024 session would have required carbon monoxide alarms in rental units and set a 15-day repair deadline. It died: its last action was "Senate Read and Referred" on 27 February 2023, that session has since adjourned sine die, and the Code carries no Section 44-7-25 for the bill to have created.

When a carbon monoxide alarm stops working in a rented home in Georgia, these are the five routes a tenant can take and where each one comes from.

"Via general law" means the Georgia carbon monoxide statute itself is silent and the remedy comes from the state's landlord-tenant law instead. The remedy is available even though the alarm rule does not contain it.

"No provision found" is a finding rather than a gap in the research: the chapter that would carry that remedy was read and contains nothing either way. What was read is named beside the row.

Tenant remedies for a defective carbon monoxide alarm in Georgia, with the citation or the body of law searched for each.
Rent withholding	No provision foundSearched: O.C.G.A. Title 44, Chapter 7 (landlord and tenant), read across its articles including the 2024 amendments as passed in House Bill 404, plus the Georgia Appleseed Safe at Home bench card for magistrate judges. Nothing in Chapter 7 lets a Georgia tenant hold rent back for a repair failure, and the 2024 Act did not add one while it was rewriting the chapter. A tenant who stops paying is simply in nonpayment, which 44-7-50(c) answers with a three business day notice to pay or vacate and then a dispossessory.
Repair and deduct	No provision foundSearched: O.C.G.A. Title 44, Chapter 7 (landlord and tenant), same read as the rent-withholding cell, including the sections House Bill 404 revised and the one it created. No statutory repair-and-deduct provision was located and none expressly denying one either. Commercial landlord-tenant sites describe a Georgia repair-and-deduct practice and they contradict each other on whether it exists; no section of Chapter 7 grants it, so it is not recorded here as a remedy a tenant can rely on.
Right to end the lease	No provision foundSearched: O.C.G.A. Title 44, Chapter 7 (landlord and tenant), including its dispossessory and retaliation articles as amended in 2024. Every termination pathway Chapter 7 carries runs the landlord's way, the dispossessory at 44-7-50 and the bar at 44-7-24(c) that stops a landlord terminating a lease in response to a complaint. Nothing there lets a tenant end the tenancy over a habitability defect, and 44-7-13(b) creates a term inside the lease rather than a right to walk away from it.
Notice the tenant must give	No provision foundSearched: O.C.G.A. Title 44, Chapter 7 (landlord and tenant), checked for any notice period attaching to a habitability defect, and re-checked against the day counts the 2024 Act added. No period attaches to a tenant's repair complaint. Chapter 7 does carry a day count and it runs the other way: the three business days at 44-7-50(c) are what a landlord must give a tenant before filing for nonpayment. Written notice to the landlord still matters for a different reason, because 44-7-24(b) protects a tenant who gave notice to repair, but that subsection sets no period either.
Landlord cure period	Via general lawO.C.G.A. 44-7-13(a) and (b). 44-7-13(a) says the landlord shall keep the premises in repair, the verb House Bill 404 substituted for "must" in 2024, and it fixes no deadline. 44-7-13(b) deems every covered residential agreement to include a provision that the premises is fit for human habitation. Neither subsection sets a number of days, so the duty runs continuously rather than opening a statutory cure window, and Section 6 of the Act limits both to leases entered into or renewed on or after 1 July 2024.

Remedies last checked 2026-08-20. Compare Georgia with the other states.

What Georgia Requires in Lodging

The Georgia requirement reaches some lodging and not the rest, and which side a property falls on is something an operator can check rather than guess.

What it turns on for a hotel:What is inside the guest room decides it, and nothing about the building's age or size does. Georgia writes no carbon monoxide rule of its own for lodging. Rule 120-3-3-.04 of the Rules of the Safety Fire Commissioner deletes International Fire Code Section 915 in its entirety and replaces it with a single sentence: "Carbon monoxide detection shall be installed in accordance with NFPA 72 where required by the applicable occupancy chapters of NFPA 101." The same rule adopts NFPA 101 in its 2024 edition, and for a new hotel or dormitory the applicable chapter is 28. Section 28.3.4.7.1 requires alarms or detectors where either condition exists: a guest room or guest suite with a communicating attached garage, or one containing a permanently installed fuel-burning appliance or fuel-burning fireplace. A guest room with neither is not covered, and 28.3.4.7.3 exempts the garage trigger where the garage is an open parking structure or is mechanically ventilated. Where the appliance sits outside the guest rooms, 28.3.4.7.4 puts detectors on the ceiling of its room, in spaces served by the first supply air register of a fuel-burning HVAC system, and in spaces adjacent to a communicating attached garage.

What it turns on for a short-term rental:NFPA 101 gives a short-term rental its own occupancy route and the trigger is what the unit contains, not how long a guest stays. Section 24.6.1.1 of the 2024 edition provides that "the provisions of Chapter 24 and this section shall apply to short-term rental housing units", and Section 24.6.1.2 sends a unit with ten or more sleeping accommodations to Chapter 26 instead. Both chapters then ask the same two questions. Section 24.3.4.2.1 requires alarms or detectors in new and existing one- and two-family dwellings where the unit has a communicating attached garage, unless exempted by 24.3.4.2.3, or contains fuel-burning appliances or fuel-burning fireplaces; Section 26.3.4.6.1 says the same for new and existing lodging or rooming houses. A unit with neither a communicating attached garage nor a fuel-burning appliance is not covered. Where it is covered, the devices go outside each separate sleeping area in the immediate vicinity of the sleeping rooms and on every occupiable level including basements, excluding attics and crawl spaces.

Hotels already standing: it depends, and on a separate test from the one that decides coverage generally. The same two facts about the guest room decide it, and Georgia says so for existing buildings in a sentence of its own. Rule 120-3-3-.04 deletes International Fire Code Section 1103.9 and replaces it with: "Carbon monoxide detection shall be installed in existing buildings in accordance with NFPA 72 where required by the applicable occupancy chapters of NFPA 101." For an existing hotel or dormitory that chapter is 29, and Section 29.3.4.6.1 carries the same two triggers as the new-building section: a communicating attached garage, or a permanently installed fuel-burning appliance or fireplace in the guest room or suite. The consequence is worth stating because it is the opposite of what most retrofit questions return. Under NFPA 101 the chapters for new and existing hotels are identical in substance, differing only in section numbers and in "new" against "existing", so in Georgia the age of a hotel changes nothing about the carbon monoxide duty. Under the I-Code pattern that Georgia deleted, Chapter 11 would have been a separate and weaker retrofit route. Georgia removed that route and replaced it with one that treats both the same.

Penalties for Non-Compliance

Georgia states no consequence for a carbon monoxide failure, and what exists instead is the ordinary machinery of code enforcement: a permit that is not issued, an inspection that is not passed, a notice of violation from the local authority administering the state minimum standard codes. None of that is a figure an owner can look up, and none of it survives compliance. The practical pressure is therefore on a project rather than on a person, which for a building already finished and occupied means the question moves to the fire official and to civil exposure after an incident.

The Georgia amendments to the residential code carry no penalty provision, and enforcement runs through local adoption of the state minimum standard codes. No statewide fine schedule was located.

Additional Notes

If you want the exact placement/power/interconnection rules, cite the specific Georgia IRC edition in force locally (Section R315) plus any local amendments.

Local Rules That Differ From State Law

We checked the municipal codes listed below and found no Georgia city rule that differs from the statewide requirement. The state rule is the operative one for those jurisdictions. Smaller municipalities were not all searched, so confirm with your local building or fire official before treating this as complete.

What was checked:Nine city codes read: Atlanta, Savannah, Augusta-Richmond County, Columbus, Athens-Clarke County, Sandy Springs, Roswell, Marietta and Tybee Island. Between them they hold the state's largest population centers, its capital and its two busiest short-term rental markets, and not one of them writes a carbon monoxide requirement. Atlanta is the one that failed on 2026-08-01 and it was settled twice over on 2026-08-10 by two routes that do not share a weakness: its published index, codified through 27 May 2026, answers 1,004 times for "building" and 402 times for "fire" and zero times for "monoxide", and a separate crawl of all 217 chunks of the same code, 7.7 million characters of text, agrees. Two Atlanta sections matter even so. Section 78-57 adopts the International Fire Code as Georgia has amended it and then prints Atlanta's own amendments inside the ordinance rather than in a separate document, which is what makes the zero a fact about the operative text. Section 78-64 lays fire and life safety duties on hotels already standing, down to a powered smoke detector in every guest room, and says nothing at all about carbon monoxide. Savannah's only carbon monoxide provision aims at the appliance rather than the alarm: Section 3-2020 forbids an approved oil-fueled wick heater from producing carbon monoxide at hazardous rates, and Sections 3-2017 through 3-2019 make the city approve such a heater before anyone may sell it. Marietta's single hit remains a 2006 budget line buying monitors. Every reading was control-tested against terms the same index does return. Georgia permits a stricter local rule and charges a real price for one: under O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(c) a city amendment to the state minimum standard codes goes to the Department of Community Affairs sixty days before adoption, has to rest on findings about local climate, geology, topography or public safety, and can never be looser than the state code. So the municipal code is the right place to look in this state, and the cities that matter have not gone there. Smaller Georgia cities and the coastal islands other than Tybee were not searched. Re-run on 2026-08-11 against a defect in the search engine, which does not match plurals, so a negative asserted on a singular phrase could have been hiding an ordinance written in the plural. Every term was searched in both forms across all nine cities and nothing moved. Atlanta is the useful case: its count for "building" comes back at exactly 1,004, the same figure this note already records, which means the index is stable and the two readings are of the same text rather than of two different snapshots. Savannah had to be re-read on the other host again, because its Municode client is a stub that answers zero for every control and would be mistaken for a dead code by anyone who did not know; on the publisher that does hold the Savannah code, both forms return the wick-heater section at 3-2020 and nothing else.

Local sweep last reviewed 2026-08-10.

Official Sources & References

Rules of the Safety Fire Commissioner, Chapter 120-3-3, State Minimum Fire Safety Standards , The adoption list, and Section 701.2.2 naming the NFPA 101 edition in the rule's own text (fire code, accessed 2026-08-26)
An edition-currency check, run on 2026-08-26 against the Secretary of State's own rules portal. The chapter adopts the "International Fire Code (IFC), 2024 Edition", whose Section 101.1 it rewrites as a Georgia State Minimum Fire Prevention Code, and its own text names the Life Safety Code edition where it needs to: Section 701.2.2 requires barrier identification "complying with the requirements of NFPA 101, 2024 Edition, Life Safety Code, Chapter 8". Both are the editions the answers here reason from, and the NFPA one is load-bearing: the 2024 base edition is reproduced in NFPA's Second Draft Report for the A2026 cycle, which is how the assembly answer here was closed on 12.3.4.4 and the 2024-new 13.3.4.4.
Rules and Regulations of the Insurance Commissioner, Chapter 120-3, Rules of the Safety Fire Commissioner, Subject 120-3-3, State Minimum Fire Safety Standards, Rule 120-3-3-.04 , Modifications to IFC Chapter 9 item 21 (Section 915 deleted and replaced), Modifications to IFC Chapter 11 item 5 (Section 1103.9 deleted and replaced), the adopted-standards list at NFPA 101 2024 Edition, and Modifications to NFPA 101 Chapters 28 and 29. Through that adoption the operative lodging provisions are NFPA 101 Section 28.3.4.7 for new hotels and dormitories, including Section 28.3.4.7.1, and Section 29.3.4.6 for existing ones, including Section 29.3.4.6.1, neither of which Georgia amends. (fire code, accessed 2026-08-20)
The instrument that answers Georgia's lodging question, read in full on 2026-08-20 from the Safety Fire Commissioner's own host. rules.sos.ga.gov refuses this network outright, and this PDF is the same rule text from the agency that writes it. Three things establish the answer. Georgia deletes IFC Section 915 and replaces it with "Carbon monoxide detection shall be installed in accordance with NFPA 72 where required by the applicable occupancy chapters of NFPA 101", and deletes Section 1103.9 for the same treatment of existing buildings. The adopted-standards list carries "NFPA 101, 2024 Edition, Life Safety Code". And Georgia's modifications to NFPA 101 Chapters 28 and 29 leave the carbon monoxide sections untouched. That last point is an absence, so it was established positively rather than by failing to find anything. Georgia amends Chapter 28 three times, adding 28.3.2.2.4 on cooking facilities and 28.3.4.5.1 on dormitory corridor smoke detection and replacing 28.7.1 through 28.7.5 on emergency planning. It amends Chapter 29 three times, adding 29.3.4.5.3 and 29.3.4.5.4 on corridor smoke detection and replacing 29.7.1 through 29.7.5. The amendments in each chapter land in the subsection immediately before the carbon monoxide one, at 28.3.4.5 against 28.3.4.7 and at 29.3.4.5 against 29.3.4.6. Georgia is demonstrably editing at that exact location and chose not to change the carbon monoxide requirement. One trap in this document is worth recording. It also carries "Modifications to Chapter 28" and "Modifications to Chapter 29" inside the block for NFPA 13, the sprinkler standard, which begins several thousand lines earlier. A search on the chapter number alone returns the wrong standard. The NFPA 101 block runs from its adopted-standards entry to the NFPA 101A entry that follows it, and the chapter modifications quoted here are inside that range.
Georgia International Residential Code 2020 Amendments, Section R315 (Carbon Monoxide Alarms) , R315.2.1 (building code, accessed 2026-02-16)
Official Georgia DCA publication revising R315.2.1 to require CO alarms in dwelling units for new construction (effective Jan 1, 2020).
Georgia Department of Community Affairs, Current State Minimum Codes for Construction , Current state minimum standard codes (includes International Residential Code) (agency guidance, accessed 2026-02-16)
Official DCA page listing the state minimum standard codes adopted by the Board of Community Affairs.
Georgia Secretary of State Rules, Georgia State Minimum Standard Codes (GAC 110-11-1) , Rule 110-11-1-.01 (state code, accessed 2026-02-16)
Official rules page referencing O.C.G.A. §8-2-20 et seq. and describing the state minimum standard codes framework.
Georgia State Amendments to the International Residential Code, Section R315 Carbon Monoxide Alarms , Amended R315.1, R315.2 and R315.3 (secondary index, accessed 2026-08-13)
Georgia's own amendment text, read on 2026-08-13 to replace an aggregator that had been carrying two of this page's core facts. It rewrites the model section rather than adopting it. R315.1 as revised: for new construction an approved carbon monoxide alarm shall be installed outside of each sleeping area in the immediate vicinity of the bedrooms in dwelling units, with the model's fuel-fired-appliance and communicating-attached-garage conditions removed entirely. R315.2 permits carbon monoxide detection systems with detectors listed to UL 2075 and audible notification appliances under NFPA 720, and makes a household system a permanent fixture owned by the homeowner, with an exception where R315.1 alarms are installed. R315.3 as revised reaches existing dwellings when alterations, repairs or additions requiring a permit occur or when one or more sleeping rooms are added or created, with two exceptions: exterior work such as roofing, siding, windows, doors, a porch or a deck; and the installation, alteration or repair of plumbing or mechanical systems. EDITION, resolved. The R315.1, R315.2 and R315.3 text above is the amendment set effective 1 January 2014. The currently adopted set was then read as well: the 2020 amendments, effective 1 January 2020, revise R315.2.1 to read that for new construction, carbon monoxide alarms shall be provided in dwelling units, with no conditions attached, which confirms the unconditional reading rather than disturbing it. Between them sits a 2018 amendment report proposing to restore the model's fuel-fired-appliance and attached-garage conditions; it is marked on its face as proposed only and not adopted, and the 2020 adopted text shows it never was. The cherokeecountyga.gov copy of the combined 2018 amendments refuses automated requests and was not needed.
Georgia House Bill 404 (2023-2024 session), the "Safe at Home Act", as passed House and Senate, Ga. L. 2024, p. 392 , Section 2 (revising O.C.G.A. 44-7-13), Section 3 (revising 44-7-14.1(a)), Section 4 (creating 44-7-30.1), Section 5 (revising 44-7-50), Section 6 (applicability) (state code, accessed 2026-08-20)
The instrument behind Georgia's tenant remedy answers, read as passed rather than as summarised. It is the reason four of the five remedy cells are none_found in a state that had just passed its largest tenant-side amendment in a generation: Section 2 added a deemed contract term at 44-7-13(b), that any agreement for the use or rental of real property as a dwelling place "is deemed to include a provision that the premises is fit for human habitation", and it added no withholding, no deduction and no termination right to go with it. Section 6 then confines the whole Act to "residential lease agreements that are entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2024". SOURCE VINTAGE, worth recording because it cost three fetches. codes.findlaw.com resolves Georgia statute text reliably and its Georgia pages are pre-2024: on 2026-08-20 it returned 44-7-13 as the single-sentence version with no subsections, 44-7-14.1(a) without "cooling", and 44-7-50 without the three-business-day subsection (c). Each of those is a section this Act revised. A reader of that source alone would conclude 44-7-13(b) does not exist.
NFPA 101, Life Safety Code, 2024 Edition, Sections 24.6.1.1, 24.6.1.2, 24.3.4.2 and 26.3.4.6, short-term rental housing units and the dwelling and lodging house carbon monoxide provisions, read from the NFPA Second Draft Report for the A2026 cycle which names the edition on its cover (fire code, accessed 2026-08-22)

Disclaimer: This page explains the law as it stood on August 26, 2026. It is general information, not legal advice, and reading it creates no attorney-client relationship. Requirements vary by city, county and building type, and statutes and codes are amended: confirm the current text with the issuing authority before acting on it. Each requirement here cites the instrument it comes from, so you can check it at source.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Georgia CO alarm rule mainly a new-construction code requirement?

Yes. Georgia primary statewide pathway is code-based and tied to IRC Section R315 as implemented through state minimum standards and local enforcement. The clearest trigger is new residential construction and comparable permit-driven projects, not a broad one-line statute covering every occupancy. That means builders must confirm the local adopted edition and amendments before installation planning begins. In practice, failures happen when teams assume one jurisdiction interpretation applies statewide. Georgia compliance is strongest when alarm requirements are reviewed at permit intake, not at final inspection.

Which Georgia residential projects usually trigger CO alarm installation?

Projects that fall under locally enforced Georgia IRC pathways, especially new one- and two-family homes and covered townhome construction, commonly trigger installation duties. Depending on local adoption language, major permitted residential work can also bring carbon monoxide alarm requirements into scope. Georgia's amended Section R315.3 names the existing-dwelling trigger directly: alterations, repairs or additions requiring a permit, or the addition or creation of one or more sleeping rooms. Two exceptions sit inside it and the second is the one that catches people. Exterior work is exempt, meaning roofing, siding, windows, doors, a porch or a deck. So is the installation, alteration or repair of plumbing or mechanical systems, which means swapping a furnace does not by itself pull an older Georgia house into the requirement, even though that is the work a reader would assume triggers it.

In Georgia rentals, which lease and maintenance controls support CO compliance?

Georgia framework is code-driven, so landlords should first verify whether the property was built or renovated under code triggers that require alarms. For covered units, ongoing compliance means keeping alarms operable, documenting service calls, and ensuring move-in readiness. Lease terms should clarify tenant reporting duties and owner repair response expectations. Because local enforcement practice can vary, multi-jurisdiction operators should maintain a county or city matrix rather than applying one blanket rule. In practice, what binds a Georgia landlord is the locally enforced IRC-based requirement.

Do all-electric Georgia homes have automatic statewide exemptions?

No. Georgia removed the condition that would have created the exemption, and a document shows the removal was deliberate. The model IRC asks for an alarm only where the dwelling holds a fuel-fired appliance or has a communicating attached garage. Georgia's State Amendments rewrote Section R315.1 and dropped both, so a new all-electric Georgia house with no attached garage still takes an alarm. The document is a 2018 amendment report that proposed restoring the two model conditions. It is marked on its face as proposed only, and the currently adopted set, effective 1 January 2020, revises R315.2.1 to read that for new construction carbon monoxide alarms shall be provided in dwelling units, again with no conditions. The restoration was put forward and did not happen, so the unconditional trigger is a choice Georgia has tested rather than a gap it overlooked. What varies is local. O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(c) lets a local government amend the state minimum standard upward on findings about local conditions, so check the local text before treating the state rule as complete. That route cannot run the other way and restore an exemption the state removed.

How does Georgia approach compare with Florida statute model?

Georgia and Florida both rely on code pathways, but Florida has a clearer statewide statute in Section 553.885 covering new buildings and additions. Georgia relies more heavily on state minimum code adoption and local enforcement of IRC Section R315. For multi-state construction programs, this difference changes how teams structure due diligence and permit intake checklists. Compare Georgia code-adoption model with Florida CO detector laws before reusing standard specifications across both states.

Practical CO Detector Guides

Beyond legal requirements, these guides help you choose, install, and maintain CO alarms:

Where to place carbon monoxide detectors, room-by-room placement recommendations
CO detector beeping patterns, what different alarms mean
What to do if your detector goes off, emergency response checklist
CO resources and links, official agencies and safety information