Are CO Detectors Required in Hawaii Rentals?

Three links carry a carbon monoxide requirement into a Hawaii tenancy, and a tenant can check each one.

The first is HRS 107-25, which establishes state building codes applicable to all construction in the State of Hawaii and bases them on model codes including the International Building Code and the International Residential Code. The State Building Code Council took the 2018 edition of the building code on 20 April 2021, with errata and addenda approved on 17 August 2021, and approved the State Residential Code, built on the 2018 International Residential Code, on 17 November 2020. Both adoption clauses take in all parts of the model code subject to the Council's own amendments, and neither set of amendments touches carbon monoxide. Section 915 and Section R315 therefore apply as printed.

The second link is the one people miss. HRS 107-28(a) gives each county two years to amend and adopt those codes for its own jurisdiction, and 107-28(b) hands the state codes to any county that has not, as an interim county building code. There is always a code, and there are four possible versions of it.

The third link is HRS 521-42(a)(1), which requires the landlord, at all times during the tenancy, to comply with all applicable building and housing laws materially affecting health and safety. Read that phrase closely, because it is narrower than the equivalent clause in most states of the URLTA family. Ohio, Indiana and their kind write "building, housing, health and safety codes". Hawaii writes building and housing laws only. The narrowing does no damage here for one specific reason: in Hawaii the carbon monoxide requirement is a building law and nothing else, so it walks straight through the door 521-42(a)(1) leaves open. The clause that would exclude it in another state is the clause that admits it here.

Start with the building rather than the lease, because Hawaii's answer is decided by which document your unit falls under.

The Hawaii State Residential Code governs detached one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses not more than three stories above grade plane with a separate means of egress. Its amended Section R101.2 lists building types and building work and says nothing about who occupies the building, so letting the house does not take it out of scope. Rent a house in Manoa or a townhouse in Mililani and Section R315 of the 2018 International Residential Code is your provision.

An apartment building is not in that list. It answers the Hawaii State Building Code, and Section 915.1.1 of the adopted 2018 International Building Code reaches Group I-1, I-2, I-4 and R occupancies along with Group E classrooms. An apartment house is a Group R-2 occupancy, so a Honolulu high-rise and a four-unit Hilo walk-up both sit inside Section 915.

Both codes then ask the same question about the unit, and the answer is often no. Detection is owed where the unit holds a fuel-burning appliance or a fuel-burning fireplace, where a fuel-burning forced-air furnace serves it, where a fuel-burning appliance sits elsewhere in the building with a communicating opening into the unit, or where an attached private garage adjoins it. A Hawaii unit that is electric throughout, in a building with no gas equipment and no attached garage, meets none of those conditions and owes no alarm under either code. That deserves saying plainly rather than hedging, because a tenant who has been told the landlord is breaking the law also deserves to know when the landlord is not.

Gas is what usually decides it, and Hawaii's gas does not look like the mainland's. Hawaii Gas is the state's only gas utility. It runs about 1,100 miles of pipeline carrying synthetic natural gas, produced since 1974 at a plant in West Oahu, into buildings on that island, and it distributes liquefied petroleum gas to customers across the rest of the state. Both burn fuel for code purposes, and the second is the one a tenant overlooks, because a propane cylinder behind a Kona duplex does not look like a utility connection. Check the water heater and the range before deciding your unit is electric.

One more split matters on Oahu and it is invisible from the mainland. The City and County of Honolulu adopts the two state codes in two separate ordinance sections. ROH 16-1.1 takes the state building code, and its amendment (77) rewrites Section 915.1 to add a trigger where the valuation of an addition, alteration or repair to existing dwelling and sleeping units passes the threshold in ROH Chapter 18 and a permit is required, or where a sleeping unit is created. ROH 16-1.2 takes the Hawaii State Residential Code separately. Whether Honolulu makes a parallel amendment to Section R315 in that second section was not read for this page, so a tenant in an Oahu house should ask the Department of Planning and Permitting which version of R315 the city enforces rather than assume the 16-1.1 valuation trigger reaches them.

HRS 521-42(a) puts four obligations on a Hawaii landlord that a carbon monoxide alarm can travel through, and they do different work.

Paragraph (a)(1) requires compliance with all applicable building and housing laws materially affecting health and safety, at all times during the tenancy. The phrase "at all times" is what converts a construction-stage code requirement into a continuing duty. A building code speaks to the moment of construction or of permitted work; 521-42(a)(1) makes the landlord answer for the state of the building today.

Paragraph (a)(3) requires all repairs and arrangements necessary to put and keep the premises in a habitable condition. Paragraph (a)(4) requires the landlord to maintain all electrical, plumbing, and other facilities and appliances supplied by the landlord in good working order and condition, subject to reasonable wear and tear. That wording decides who owns a dead alarm. An alarm hardwired into the building, or one the landlord handed over with the unit, is a facility or appliance supplied by the landlord and falls under (a)(4). A plug-in alarm the tenant bought at the drugstore is not, and no clause of 521-42 reaches it.

Then read subsection (b), which is the part of the Hawaii statute that no aggregator covers. A landlord and tenant may agree in writing that the tenant will perform specified repairs, maintenance tasks and minor remodeling, but only if three conditions hold, and the second is decisive: the work to be performed by the tenant must not be necessary to cure noncompliance by the landlord with section 521-42(a)(1). Put a clause in a Hawaii lease making the tenant responsible for installing or maintaining a carbon monoxide alarm that a building law requires, and the statute has already answered it. The agreement fails condition (b)(2), because the work is what cures an (a)(1) noncompliance. A clause covering battery changes on a device that no code required in the first place is a different case and can stand.

One duty falls due before the tenant moves in and says nothing about alarms on its face. Prior to the initial date of initial occupancy the landlord shall inventory the premises and make a written record detailing the condition of the premises and any furnishings or appliances provided. Duplicate copies get signed by both parties and a copy goes to each tenant. A Hawaii landlord who lists each alarm, its location and its condition on that inventory has built the only contemporaneous record the statute contemplates, and has protected themselves as much as the tenant.

HRS 521-51 gives the tenant a mirror of the landlord's first duty, then adds three that reach a carbon monoxide alarm directly.

Paragraph (1) requires the tenant to comply with all applicable building and housing laws materially affecting health and safety, which is word for word the landlord's obligation under 521-42(a)(1). A 1998 Intermediate Court of Appeals decision shows how narrow that is in practice: where no evidence established that a tenant's failure to replace damaged tiles violated a building or housing law materially affecting health and safety, the landlord could not terminate the lease for it. The clause is no general tidiness rule, and a landlord invoking it has to name the law.

Paragraph (5) requires the tenant to properly use and operate all electrical and plumbing fixtures and appliances in the dwelling unit. Paragraph (6) forbids the tenant, or anyone on the premises with the tenant's permission, from wilfully destroying, defacing, damaging, impairing or removing any part of the premises, including the facilities, equipment and appurtenances. Pulling a chirping alarm off the ceiling and putting it in a drawer is removal of equipment under (6). Paragraph (7) then requires the tenant to keep all facilities and appliances supplied by the landlord in fit condition, reasonable wear and tear excepted.

Two consequences follow, and both hurt. Under 521-64(f) a tenant may never repair at the landlord's expense where the condition was caused by the want of due care of the tenant, a member of the tenant's family, or another person on the premises with the tenant's consent. Under 521-74(b)(4) the retaliation protection falls away where the complaint relates only to a condition caused by the lack of ordinary care of the tenant or someone in the household. A tenant who removed the battery and then complains about the silent alarm has handed the landlord both defences at once. Report the fault and leave the device where it is.

Two different sets of numbers apply, and which set you read depends on the building type established above.

For a house, a duplex or a townhouse under the State Residential Code, Section R315 of the 2018 International Residential Code governs as printed. R315.3 places the alarm outside each separate sleeping area in the immediate vicinity of the bedrooms, and inside a bedroom that contains a fuel-burning appliance or has one in an attached bathroom. R315.5 requires interconnection where more than one alarm is required in the same dwelling unit, with listed wireless alarms accepted in place of a physical connection. R315.6 takes primary power from the building wiring where that wiring is served from a commercial source, with battery backup and no disconnecting switch other than overcurrent protection, and permits battery-only devices in a building without commercial power and where R315.2.2 applies. R315.4 accepts a combination carbon monoxide and smoke alarm.

R315.2.2 is the provision that catches an existing rental house, and it is the one worth naming to a landlord who says the requirement did not exist when the house was built. Permitted alterations, repairs and additions bring the alarm duty with them. A Hawaii landlord who reroofs, encloses a lanai or replaces a water heater under permit has pulled the house into scope, and the age of the house has stopped being the answer.

For an apartment building under the State Building Code, Section 915 of the 2018 International Building Code governs. Placement comes from Section 915.2 and installation from Section 915.4, while Section 915.5 allows a carbon monoxide detection system as an alternative to individual alarms, which is how a larger Hawaii building usually complies.

Honolulu adds four exceptions to its version of Section 915.1 and two of them decide what device a tenant should expect. Battery-operated alarms are permitted where the code in force at the time of construction required no carbon monoxide detection, and where the unit has no commercial power. A battery unit screwed to the hallway ceiling in an older Oahu building is therefore not evidence of a cheap landlord, and a tenant demanding a hardwired device there is asking for something the ordinance does not require.

Hawaii puts a document at the start of the tenancy that most states leave to the parties, and it is worth more to a tenant than any testing schedule.

HRS 521-42 requires the landlord, prior to the initial date of initial occupancy, to inventory the premises and make a written record detailing the condition of the premises and any furnishings or appliances provided. Both parties sign duplicate copies and each tenant gets one. In an action arising under that section the executed inventory is presumed to be correct. The sanction for skipping it runs the other way and it is severe: if the landlord fails to make the inventory and written record, the condition of the premises and any furnishings or appliances at the end of the tenancy is rebuttably presumed to be the same as when the tenant first occupied.

The Intermediate Court of Appeals applied that presumption in 2006, at 112 Haw. 302, 145 P.3d 845. A landlord who had taken the first month's rent and entered an oral rental agreement without producing the inventory was held to the presumption, offered nothing to rebut it, and lost a damages award for property damage as a result. Read across to carbon monoxide, the presumption cuts both ways. Write down every alarm, its location, its manufacture date and whether it sounded on a test, and a later argument about whether the unit ever had a working alarm has an answer. Leave the inventory undone, and the landlord is arguing against a statutory presumption.

Neither code sets a testing interval for a rental, so follow the manufacturer's instructions and log what you do. Published service lives run from five to ten years, with Kidde giving ten years to everything it has built since 2013 and seven to anything older, and the date sits on the back of the device. Photograph it at move-in. It is the single most useful thing on the alarm, and our guide to how long carbon monoxide detectors last sets out what each manufacturer publishes.

Entry is tightly drawn in Hawaii, and a landlord planning alarm inspections should read HRS 521-53 before scheduling them. Under (a) the tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent to entry to inspect the premises or make necessary or agreed repairs. Under (b) the landlord shall not abuse that right or use it to harass, and except in an emergency or where it is impracticable, shall give at least two days notice of the intent to enter and shall enter only during reasonable hours. Subsection (c) then closes the list: the landlord has no other right of entry except by court order, unless the tenant appears to have abandoned the premises or section 521-70(b) applies. Hawaii leaves no residual power to enter for routine maintenance without notice, and an annual alarm sweep announced by a note taped to the door that morning does not satisfy 521-53(b).

No Hawaii agency inspects a rental for carbon monoxide alarms. The county building department administers the adopted code, and its ordinary reach is permitted work rather than an occupied apartment. What a Hawaii tenant has instead is chapter 521, and the routes there are more generous than most states allow and more procedural than they look.

Start with the clocks in HRS 521-64, because there are three of them and the choice of clock decides everything.

Where a state or county agency gives the landlord written notification that a condition on the premises constitutes a health or safety violation, subsection (a) requires the landlord to commence repairs within seven calendar days, in good faith and completed as soon as possible, with a duty to explain and set a tentative date if that proves impossible for reasons beyond their control.

Where the tenant gives written notification of a defective condition in material noncompliance with 521-42(a) or with the rental agreement, subsection (c) sets twelve business days. Buried in the same subsection is a shorter clock that fits a carbon monoxide alarm better than either. In any case involving repairs to electrical, plumbing or other facilities, including major appliances provided by the landlord, that are necessary to provide sanitary and habitable living conditions, the landlord shall commence repairs within three business days of receiving oral or written notification. A hardwired alarm, or one the landlord supplied, is an electrical facility. The call you make on Monday morning starts a three-business-day clock, and you do not need to put it in writing to start it.

Miss the clock and the deduction opens. Under (b) and (d) the tenant may do or have done the necessary work in a competent manner and, on submitting receipts amounting to at least the sum deducted, take the greater of $1,000 or one month's rent out of the rent. The per-job figure is not the highest in the fifty-one, since Virginia's floor is $1,500 and Massachusetts allows four months' rent on one repair. What Hawaii has that neither has is repetition: subsection (e) caps total correction work chargeable to the landlord at three months' rent in any six-month period, six months across a year, where Massachusetts allows four and stops. The two-estimates procedure that guidance sites describe belongs to one route only, 521-64(b)(2), where the tenant submits written signed estimates from two qualified workers at least seven calendar days before the work and uses the lower bidder. Under (b)(1) and under (d) no estimates are required at all.

Subsection (e) also carries the trap. At the time of the initial notice under (c), the tenant shall list every condition of noncompliance the tenant knows of or should know of, in addition to the one they intend to have corrected. Failure to list a known condition estops the tenant from requiring the landlord to correct it, and from having it corrected at the landlord's expense, for six months from that notice. A tenant who writes to the landlord about a dead carbon monoxide alarm and says nothing about the broken window latch they have known about since March has lost the latch for half a year.

Termination sits in HRS 521-63 and it is quick. Where a condition deprives the tenant of a substantial part of the benefit and enjoyment of the bargain, the tenant notifies the landlord in writing and may terminate if the landlord does not remedy within one week. The notice requirement is waived where the condition renders the dwelling unit uninhabitable or poses an imminent threat to the health or safety of any occupant, which is a live question where an alarm is missing and a fuel appliance is venting badly, and not a live question where an alarm is missing and the building runs on electricity. Under (b), where the landlord caused the condition wilfully or negligently, the tenant may also recover damages sustained, so terminating gives up no claim.

Rent withholding is the route Hawaii does not offer. HRS 521-78 is a rent trust fund rather than a self-help remedy: it operates only inside a court proceeding where payment or nonpayment of rent is in dispute, at the request of either party, and the court then holds the money and decides who gets it. Two details matter before a tenant relies on it. Under (b), a tenant who cannot pay the ordered amount into court hands the landlord judgment for possession, and the writ issues to the sheriff or a police officer, so an escrow attempt by a tenant who is already short becomes an eviction. And the court will not order a deposit at all where the parties executed a signed written instrument agreeing that rent could be withheld or deducted.

Retaliation protection under HRS 521-74 carries a distinction worth knowing in a state whose carbon monoxide duty is a building law. Paragraph (a)(1) protects a good faith complaint to the department of health, the landlord, the building department, the office of consumer protection or another government agency, but keys the protection to conditions constituting a violation of a health law or regulation or of a provision of chapter 521. A pure building-code violation may not clear that description. Paragraph (a)(3) carries no such limit: it protects a tenant who has in good faith requested repairs under 521-63 or 521-64. The safer route in Hawaii is therefore the written repair request, because (a)(3) protects it on its face while (a)(1) invites an argument about whether a building code is a health law.

Hawaii publishes no statewide fine for a missing carbon monoxide alarm, and the reason is structural rather than an unfinished search. There is no carbon monoxide statute, so no penalty section attaches to one. The duty comes from a building code, and building codes carry their consequences in the enforcement chapters of whichever county adopted them.

For a landlord that means the money sits downstream. Permit refusal and correction notices are the county's ordinary tools and neither is expensive on its own. The exposure that matters is civil. A landlord who did not install an alarm the code required, or who left a supplied alarm dead after notice under 521-42(a)(4), has handed a plaintiff two documented breaches of statutory duty to argue from if somebody is poisoned. The cost of the device has never been the number in that comparison.

For a tenant the practical figure is smaller and more usable. The 521-64 deduction turns a landlord's silence into a month's rent, and it does so without a lawyer, provided the receipts exist and the notice was given properly. Two of the four county codes have been read for this site, and neither Honolulu nor Maui publishes a carbon monoxide penalty of its own. Hawaii County and Kauai County were not reached, so a local fine could exist on those two islands and has not been found.