Carbon Monoxide Detector Laws for Indiana Hotels and Short-Term Rentals

Indiana has no standalone statute requiring carbon monoxide detectors in hotels, and unlike most states it has no code provision doing the job either, as far as this page has been able to establish. That is an unusual thing to publish, so here is exactly what was read.

The Fire Prevention and Building Safety Commission adopts Indiana's codes. Its current commercial code is 675 IAC 13-2.6, the 2014 Indiana Building Code, and 675 IAC 13-2.6-1 adopts "the International Building Code, 2012 Edition, first printing dated May 2011". Its current fire code is 675 IAC 22-2.5, the 2014 Indiana Fire Code, on the 2012 International Fire Code. The Commission's own table of rules in effect lists both as currently in effect, with every earlier building code in the article marked repealed.

In the 2012 I-Codes the carbon monoxide provision is Section 908.7, not the Section 915 that later editions use. Indiana deleted it from both codes in identical words. 675 IAC 13-2.6-10(uu): "Delete Section 908.7 in its entirety without substitution." 675 IAC 22-2.5-10(mmm): "Delete Section 908.7 in its entirety without substitution." And 675 IAC 22-2.5-12 deletes Sections 1101, 1102, 1103 and 1105 of the fire code's Chapter 11, which is where the retrofit provision other states rely on would sit, leaving Section 1104 on means of egress as the only surviving part of that chapter.

A hotel is a Class 1 structure under IC 22-12-1-4(a)(1)(A), because it is occupied in part by the public, so it answers those two codes. The one Indiana statute in the area, IC 22-11-18-3, requires functional smoke detectors in hotel and motel corridors and says nothing about carbon monoxide.

A short-term rental let in a one- or two-family house is a Class 2 structure and answers a different rule, the 2020 Indiana Residential Code at 675 IAC 14-4.4, which adopts the 2018 International Residential Code. That rule amends only R315.2.2 and leaves Section R315 in force, so a house with a fuel-fired appliance or an attached garage does carry a carbon monoxide alarm duty. Local short-term rental permit ordinances add their own conditions in some cities and counties.

How far this reading goes, stated plainly. A state that deletes the model's section can write its own somewhere else in the same rules, so on 2026-08-10 every section of both was read: all 36 of 675 IAC 13-2.6 and all 51 of 675 IAC 22-2.5, fetched section by section. The phrase "carbon monoxide" appears in none of the 87, against a control of nine occurrences of "smoke alarm" or "smoke detector" in the same text, so the search was capable of finding an alarm provision and there was none to find. The Fire Prevention and Building Safety Commission's own table of every rule it administers, articles 12 through 31, contains the phrase zero times as well.

What that does not cover is Indiana law entire. It covers the two instruments that govern a Class 1 structure, the residential rule that governs a Class 2 one, the hotel statute, and the Commission's inventory of its own rules. A local ordinance is a live route and is not part of this search.

Indiana sorts buildings into structure classes before it sorts them into occupancies, and for carbon monoxide that first sort decides the answer.

Class 1: hotels, motels and commercial transient lodging. IC 22-12-1-4(a)(1) makes a building a Class 1 structure where it is occupied in any part by the public, by three or more tenants, or by anyone acting as another's employee. A hotel is squarely inside that. Class 1 structures answer the Indiana Building Code and the Indiana Fire Code, and both of those deleted their carbon monoxide section without substitution. No statewide carbon monoxide requirement for this class was found in the sections read.

Class 2: a one- or two-family house let short-term. This is the Indiana Residential Code's territory, and Section R315 of the 2018 International Residential Code applies as adopted: alarms are required in a new dwelling and on permitted alterations, additions and system replacements where the dwelling contains a fuel-fired appliance or has an attached garage, with 675 IAC 14-4.4-27 amending only R315.2.2, the alterations paragraph. So the same operator can owe an alarm in a rented house and owe nothing statewide in a hotel across the street. That is a real feature of Indiana law rather than a gap in this page.

Local rules are where a hotel duty could still appear. Indiana's building codes are adopted at state level and are not locally amendable, but IC 36-1-24 lets a unit regulate short-term rentals for health and safety, and a city or county can attach carbon monoxide conditions to a permit. Nothing found here forecloses a local ordinance reaching lodging by that route, and an operator should read the one for their own jurisdiction.

A hotel operator's statewide code duty on carbon monoxide could not be established. That sentence is doing precise work and is worth reading slowly. It does not say Indiana thinks hotel guests face no risk, and it does not say an operator who installs nothing is behaving reasonably. It says the two codes that govern a Class 1 structure each removed the provision that would have created the duty, and no replacement was found in the sections read.

What follows from that, practically:

• A plan reviewer will not require carbon monoxide detection under Section 908.7, because there is no Section 908.7 in Indiana. Anyone told otherwise is being quoted a model code rather than Indiana's version of it, and the deletion is written into 675 IAC 13-2.6-10(uu) in one line.
• A local authority can still require it, through a short-term rental permit under IC 36-1-24 or through conditions attached to another approval. That is the live route to check and it is jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
• Nothing here limits an operator's ordinary duty of care to guests, and a property with fuel-fired heating, a boiler room communicating with guest corridors, or an attached garage is exactly the profile every other state's code treats as a trigger. The absence of a code section is not a finding that the hazard is absent.
• Smoke detection is separately and clearly required. IC 22-11-18-3 requires functional smoke detectors in all hotels and motels, in interior corridors adjacent to sleeping rooms, spaced no more than 30 feet on centre and no more than 15 feet from any wall, hard wired and interconnected so that one activation sounds the others in that corridor, subject to the exceptions in subsection (f). An operator reading this page for their alarm obligations has that one regardless.

Short-term rental hosts letting a house are in a different structure class and do have a code duty: Section R315 of the 2018 International Residential Code as adopted at 675 IAC 14-4.4, at new construction and at permitted alterations, additions and system replacements, where the dwelling has a fuel-fired appliance or an attached garage. Hosts should also check the local permit ordinance, since some Indiana units attach their own carbon monoxide conditions.

There is no Indiana placement rule for a hotel guest room to state. The section that would carry one was deleted from both codes, so the usual paragraphs about sleeping units, corridors and forced-air furnaces have nothing to attach to here. This page had those paragraphs until 2026-08-10 and they described a code Indiana does not use.

For a Class 2 dwelling let short-term, Section R315 of the 2018 International Residential Code applies as adopted. 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 its attached bathroom. R315.5 requires interconnection where more than one alarm is required in the same dwelling unit, with listed wireless alarms accepted instead of a physical connection. R315.6 takes primary power from the building wiring where that wiring is served from a commercial source, with battery power when it is interrupted and no disconnecting switch other than overcurrent protection, and allows battery-only devices in a building without commercial power and where R315.2.2 applies. R315.4 permits a combination carbon monoxide and smoke alarm in place of a carbon monoxide alarm.

For an operator fitting devices in a hotel voluntarily or under a local permit condition, the residential rule above is a defensible pattern to follow and the model commercial rule is a stricter one: put the device inside the guest room where the room or its attached bathroom holds a fuel-burning appliance or the room is served by a fuel-fired forced-air furnace. Neither is an Indiana code citation, and this page will not dress one up as one.

The Indiana Department of Homeland Security (IDHS) Fire Prevention and Building Safety Commission oversees the Indiana Commercial Building Code (675 IAC 13) and the Indiana Residential Code (675 IAC 14). IDHS provides plan reviews and field inspections for all new Class 1 buildings statewide; local building officials handle Class 2 enforcement where approved officials exist. The Indiana State Fire Marshal has concurrent enforcement authority for fire and life safety code compliance. For short-term rental violations, enforcement is primarily at the local level under IC 36-1-24. Local authorities may pursue civil and administrative penalties for STR permit non-compliance.

What the split does to an operator shows up before anyone inspects anything. A Class 1 structure cannot be constructed, or construction begun at the site, until the state building commissioner issues a design release under IC 22-15-3-1. Doing the work without one is a Class C infraction under IC 22-15-3-7, and that exposure reaches each person who engages in the construction, each person who has control over it, and each person who has control over the structure.

Two lanes lead to the release and the difference between them is money. The general route at IC 22-15-3-2 requires plans and specifications prepared, sealed and filed by a registered architect or professional engineer, the fees set under IC 22-12-6-6, and a sworn certificate giving the cost estimate and square footage and committing that architect or engineer to inspect the work at intervals appropriate to its stage. The narrow route at IC 22-15-3-3 asks only for a demonstration of compliance and the fees, and it is open to a Class 1 structure of thirty thousand cubic feet or fewer, an addition adding no more than that, an alteration that does not affect structural safety, or a sprinkler installation. Detector work on a standing property usually lands in the second lane, which is the practical reason a refit is cheaper to release than it first appears.

The state-and-local line is also less clean than the two-tier description suggests. Under IC 22-15-3-1(b) the commissioner may issue a design release on a plan review performed by a city, town or county, provided that jurisdiction has been certified competent and has adopted the Commission's rules under IC 22-13-2-3. An owner running a mixed portfolio can therefore meet the same reviewer twice under different letterheads. The question to put to a local office is whether it holds that certification, rather than which government is nominally in charge of the class.

Violations of the Indiana Commercial Building Code may result in stop-work orders and denial or revocation of certificates of occupancy for non-compliant new hotel construction. A short-term rental operating without a required local permit is a separate matter from the alarm itself, and the consequence there is set by the unit that issued the permit rather than by a statewide fine. IC 36-1-24-13 is sometimes cited for a figure it does not contain: that section governs how long a permit lasts and caps what a unit may charge for one, at $150 for an initial or post-revocation permit and nothing for a renewal. Local municipalities may impose additional penalties under their own ordinances; operators should verify current penalty exposure with their local permit authority.