What South Carolina Requires for CO Alarms Under Adopted Codes

Last verified: August 24, 2026

South Carolina carbon monoxide detector laws are implemented through statewide building and fire code adoption plus statutory local enforcement authority. The state's policy memory on this issue still sits with the January 17, 2019 Allen Benedict Court tragedy in Columbia, where Calvin Witherspoon Jr. (62) and Derrick Caldwell Roper (31) died of CO poisoning in their public-housing units; the follow-up inspections logged 869 code violations, forced an emergency evacuation of more than 400 residents, drew in the HUD Inspector General, and culminated in a 2023 $2 million settlement with the Witherspoon family. None of the affected units carried operating carbon monoxide alarms. Those buildings were not new construction, which is the detail that connects the incident to the rule below: an existing building reaches the carbon monoxide requirement through Section 1103.9 of the adopted fire code and not through Section 915, and 1103.9 is the retrofit provision a state can adopt, amend or delete. The 2021 South Carolina Residential Code applies IRC Section R315 pathways for one-family and two-family dwellings and townhouses, while hotel and Group R contexts are addressed through Section 915 of the adopted 2021 building and fire codes, and through Section 1103.9 of the fire code for a building already standing, wherever fuel-related risk conditions are present.

South Carolina Code Title 6 Chapter 9 governs local enforcement authority and includes civil penalty language for building-code violations, including first-violation and continued-violation exposure. Because compliance crosses occupancy types, owners should map trigger conditions, placement, and inspection timing by property class.

South Carolina files should preserve code citations, correction notices, and reinspection outcomes for each covered property.

Quick Safety Summary

CO detector requirements for South Carolina
Applies to homes?	Yes
Applies to rentals?	Yes
Applies to hotels/STRs?	Yes
Applies to schools?	Yes, under a condition
Applies to workplaces?	No

Schools and workplaces

Schools: it depends, and the test is one you can apply to the building itself. The classroom comes in on the same section and the same conditions as the guest room. The Building Codes Council adopted the 2021 South Carolina Building Code and the 2021 South Carolina Fire Code together on 6 October 2021 with an implementation date of 1 January 2023, both re-confirmed against the Council's own adoption notice on 2026-08-24 and both still the codes in force. The Council has since adopted the 2024 editions with an implementation date of 1 January 2027, and its 2024 modification index is already published, so this answer has a known expiry: code change F102-21 replaces Section 915's occupancy list with a test on the building, and Section 915.2.3 moves from listed alarms to a carbon monoxide system. The adoption date and the 2027 implementation date are reported rather than read from the Council's notice, which still carries the 2021 adoption. Returning to the code in force, and its modification index, which runs to hundreds of entries, touches neither Section 915 nor Section 1103.9. So Section 915 applies as the model prints it: detection in Group I-1, I-2, I-4 and R occupancies and in Group E classrooms where one of the conditions in Sections 915.1.2 to 915.1.6 exists. Inside Section 915.2 the classroom has its own subsection, and it asks for more than a device: 915.2.3 requires alarm signals to be "automatically transmitted to an on-site location that is staffed by school personnel", excepting a Group E occupancy with an occupant load of 30 or less. That subsection is the reason the retrofit route matters here more than in most states. For a school already standing the route is fire code Section 1103.9, which applies the same triggers and sends a reader to Section 915.2 for placement and Section 915.4 for installation. Section 915.2 is where 915.2.3 lives, so the signal path follows a South Carolina school into an existing building rather than waiting for new construction. South Carolina reserves the building, residential, gas, plumbing, mechanical, fire and energy codes to the Council under Section 6-9-50(A), so a school district cannot be handed a different construction standard by its own city.

Workplaces: South Carolina places no carbon monoxide detection duty on an office, shop or other workplace. Federal and state occupational rules set an exposure limit for carbon monoxide in air; they do not require a detector to be installed, and this row is about installation. Section 915 of the 2021 South Carolina Building and Fire Codes reaches Group I-1, I-2, I-4 and R occupancies and Group E classrooms, and the Council modification index leaves the section alone, so no Group B, F, M or S is reached in either code. South Carolina has no standalone carbon monoxide statute at all, which is why the answer for every occupancy here runs through the codes, and Section 6-9-50(A) reserves those codes to the Building Codes Council so no municipality can add a construction requirement of its own.

When Are CO Alarms Required?

Buildings with fuel-burning appliances
Buildings with attached garages
New construction
When building permits are required
Existing dwelling obligations can be triggered by permit-required alterations repairs and additions under IRC Section R315 pathways.
Exterior-only work exceptions may apply in some existing-building scenarios under adopted code language.

Where to Install CO Alarms

Dwelling units, under Section 915.2.1 of the adopted 2021 building and fire codes: outside each separate sleeping area in the immediate vicinity of the bedrooms, and inside a bedroom holding a fuel-burning appliance or having one in its attached bathroom.
Sleeping units, which is what a hotel or motel guest room is, under Section 915.2.2: inside the unit. The corridor position is an exception and opens only where the unit and its attached bathroom hold no fuel-burning appliance AND the unit is not served by a forced-air furnace.
One- and two-family dwellings and townhouses take the residential track instead, at IRC Section R315 as adopted in the 2021 South Carolina Residential Code.

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

Device Requirements

UL 2034 listing for single-station carbon monoxide alarms.
UL 217 plus UL 2034 for combination smoke and carbon monoxide units where combination devices are used.
UL 2075 pathways for system-based carbon monoxide detection alternatives where permitted.
Hardwired power with battery backup and interconnection requirements apply in adopted-code scenarios for new work.

Landlord and Tenant Responsibilities

Landlord: Property owners and landlords in covered occupancies must maintain building-code compliance at construction and permit-triggered milestones. Provision: 2021 South Carolina Residential Code including IRC Section R315.

The cited South Carolina framework is code-driven and does not provide one separate statewide landlord-tenant maintenance statute dedicated only to carbon monoxide alarms.

Full South Carolina landlord and tenant carbon monoxide duties, with citations

Enforcement

Enforced by: Local building officials municipalities and counties under South Carolina Code section 6-9-10 and section 6-9-30, with State Fire Marshal jurisdiction in designated contexts.

Enforcement typically occurs:

During permit issuance plan review and inspection workflow.
During enforcement actions and civil penalty proceedings under section 6-9-80 for unresolved code violations.

What a Tenant Can Do in South Carolina

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

"Via general law" means the South Carolina 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.

Tenant remedies for a defective carbon monoxide alarm in South Carolina, with the citation or the body of law searched for each.
Rent withholding	Via general lawS.C. Code 27-40-640. A defensive posture rather than a right to stop paying. In an action for possession based on nonpayment, or for rent while the tenant is in possession, the tenant may rely on the rental agreement or the chapter to assert defenses and counterclaim for any amount recoverable. The act carries no escrow provision and no procedure for paying rent into court, so a tenant who withholds is choosing to be sued and then defend.
Repair and deduct	NoS.C. Code 27-40-630. The refusal is express and unusually blunt for a uniform act: under no circumstances should this section be interpreted to authorize the tenant to make repairs on the rental property and deduct the cost of the repairs from rent. What survives is narrower and does not reach an alarm, letting a tenant procure reasonable amounts of essential services during the landlord's noncompliance and deduct that actual and reasonable cost, or recover damages based on the drop in fair market rental value.
Right to end the lease	Via general lawS.C. Code 27-40-610. The written notice names the acts and omissions and sets a termination date no less than fourteen days after receipt. Two ways out for the landlord: remedying before that date, and, for a breach that does not affect health and safety, commencing the remedy inside the fourteen days and pursuing it in good faith to completion within a reasonable time. A carbon monoxide defect affects health and safety, so that second escape is not available for it.
Notice the tenant must give	Via general lawS.C. Code 27-40-610. No waiting period runs before serving, and the notice carries the termination date with it. The threshold is a material noncompliance with the agreement or a noncompliance with 27-40-440 materially affecting health and safety or the physical condition of the property, which is wider than the health-and-safety-only trigger most of the fifty-one use.
Landlord cure period	Via general law, 14 daysS.C. Code 27-40-610. Fourteen days from receipt. Damages and injunctive relief are available in a magistrate's or circuit court without posting bond, which lowers the practical cost of enforcing the clock, and attorney's fees follow only where the landlord's noncompliance was wilful.

Applies to every row above:South Carolina's Residential Landlord and Tenant Act is a URLTA adoption and, unlike Tennessee's, it runs statewide. The act supplies every column here, since no South Carolina statute puts a carbon monoxide duty on a landlord as such. What distinguishes this row is a sentence the model act does not contain. Section 27-40-630 grants a narrow deduction for essential services and then closes the door behind it, saying that under no circumstances should the section be read to let a tenant make repairs and deduct their cost from rent. South Carolina did not leave the repair-and-deduct slot reserved the way Alabama did; it wrote the refusal down. That makes it the only state in the fifty-one to refuse repair-and-deduct in terms. Four others deny a money remedy and every one of them denies rent withholding instead: Alabama, which denies both, and North Carolina, Texas and Wyoming.

Remedies last checked 2026-08-03. Compare South Carolina with the other states.

What South Carolina Requires in Lodging

The South Carolina carbon monoxide requirement reaches hotels and short-term rentals.

Hotels already standing: covered too. The South Carolina requirement reaches an existing hotel and not only one being built.

Operator duty: A South Carolina hotel operator answers Section 915 of the 2021 South Carolina Building Code and the 2021 South Carolina Fire Code, which the Building Codes Council adopted on 6 October 2021 with an implementation date of 1 January 2023 and whose modification index leaves that section alone. Detection is required in Group I-1, I-2, I-4 and R occupancies, and in Group E classrooms, wherever a unit holds a fuel-burning appliance or fireplace, is served by a fuel-burning forced-air furnace, sits in a building containing such equipment, or sits in a building with an attached private garage. A guest room is a sleeping unit, so Section 915.2.2 puts the alarm inside the room and permits a corridor position only where the room and its attached bathroom hold no fuel-burning appliance and the room is not served by a forced-air furnace. The building already standing is reached by Section 1103.9 of the fire code on the same triggers, which matters here because the International Existing Building Code is a permissive code under S.C. Code Ann. 6-9-60 that a local government must adopt by ordinance first. Nothing waits on local adoption: 6-9-10(A) requires every municipality and county to enforce these codes and to enforce only these.

Full South Carolina hotel and short-term rental requirements

Penalties for Non-Compliance

South Carolina Code section 6-9-80 allows a first civil fine up to $200, then up to $2,000 after cure opportunity, with continuing violations treated as separate daily offenses.

South Carolina Code section 6-9-80(B) and section 6-9-80(C).

Additional Notes

South Carolina operators should keep occupancy-specific compliance checklists for residential and lodging portfolios.
Civil penalty exposure should be tracked with correction deadlines and documented remediation steps.

Local Rules That Differ From State Law

We checked the municipal codes listed below and found no South Carolina 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:Charleston, Columbia and Myrtle Beach read in full, and none of the three carries a carbon monoxide provision. The controls come from the same pass over the same text: 492, 535 and 1,126 responses for "building" and 514, 383 and 294 for "fire", against nothing at all for carbon monoxide. In South Carolina that answer is more than an empty search, because state law decides in advance how little a city can do here. Section 6-9-50(A) of the South Carolina Code gives the Building Codes Council the job of adopting "and amend only the latest editions" of the building, residential, gas, plumbing, mechanical, fire and energy codes "for regulation of construction within this State", and Section 6-9-40(A) routes any change through a State Register notice, a comment period of not less than one hundred eighty days, a study committee, a public meeting and a finding on the record. Section 6-9-60 then tells municipalities and counties what is left to them: they "may adopt by reference only the latest editions" of the property maintenance, performance, existing building and swimming pool codes. A South Carolina city therefore cannot write its own carbon monoxide rule into the building or the fire code the way a Nevada or an Ohio city can; the nearest thing available to it is the property maintenance code or the existing building code, and none of these three has used either for this. What a city can still do, because it is not a code adoption at all, is attach a condition to a business licence, which is exactly how Tuscaloosa reaches short-term rentals in Alabama. All three codes carry short-term rental language, Columbia's running to twenty-nine mentions, and not one of those passages asks for a detector. Coastal towns smaller than Myrtle Beach were not searched, and the Council's own adopted amendments are a state-level document rather than a municipal one. All three cities were searched again on 2026-08-11, in the singular and the plural of every phrase that has both, because the publisher's search engine was found not to match plurals. Charleston, Columbia and Myrtle Beach still return nothing on any form, and the sentence above about a detector is the one that most needed re-testing since "detector" is exactly the kind of word the defect hides. It does not: both forms are zero in all three codes. The control figures quoted earlier do not reproduce and the honest explanation is a change of route rather than a change of law. The South Carolina sweep ran on 2026-08-07, before the publisher's own search endpoint was working, so its counts came from a different method; searching today returns 297, 145 and 177 for "building" where this note records 492, 535 and 1,126. Myrtle Beach is the widest gap. Neither set of numbers is wrong and neither disturbs the finding, because the control's only job is to prove the index answers at all, and on both routes it does while the term does not. The South Carolina negative in any case rests on Sections 6-9-50 and 6-9-60 rather than on any count.

Local sweep last reviewed 2026-08-07.

Official Sources & References

South Carolina Building Codes Council adoption page , 2021 South Carolina Residential Code including IRC Section R315 (building code, accessed 2026-02-17)
State adoption source for residential carbon monoxide alarm requirements.
South Carolina Building Codes Council adoption page for IBC and IFC , 2021 South Carolina Building Code and Fire Code, Section 915 for new work and Section 1103.9 for existing buildings (fire code, accessed 2026-02-17)
State adoption context for hotel and Group R detection requirements.
South Carolina Code Title 6 Chapter 9 , Section 6-9-10, Section 6-9-30, Section 6-9-40, Section 6-9-50, Section 6-9-60, Section 6-9-80 (state code, accessed 2026-08-10)
Enforcement authority, building-official appointment requirements, and civil penalty language. Read in full on 2026-08-10 for the lodging question. 6-9-10(A) requires every municipality and county to enforce the codes and to "enforce only the national building and safety codes provided in this chapter". 6-9-50(A) confines the Building Codes Council to "only the latest editions" of the ICC codes and withholds the codes' administrative provisions unless a local body adopts them. 6-9-60 is the list of permissive codes, which is where the International Existing Building Code sits, so the existing-hotel route in South Carolina is the fire code's Section 1103.9 rather than the IEBC. 6-9-80(B) and (C) carry the $200 first fine, the seven calendar days to remedy or file a plan, and the $2,000 per-day exposure after that.
South Carolina Code section 6-9-80 , 6-9-80(B) and 6-9-80(C) (state code, accessed 2026-02-17)
Specific penalty schedule for code violations including continuing-violation treatment.
WIS-TV (Columbia, SC), Allen Benedict Court reporting series (2019-2023) , Initial deaths (Jan 17, 2019), 400-resident evacuation, code-fine outcome, 2023 $2M settlement (secondary index, accessed 2026-05-17)
Local-broadcast record of the Allen Benedict Court CO poisoning timeline. Confirms the coroner's identification of the victims as "Calvin Witherspoon, Jr., 62, of Columbia" and "Derrick Caldwell Roper, 31, of Columbia", found on 17 January 2019, cause of death carbon monoxide poisoning; also the multi-day evacuation and the role of HUD OIG plus Columbia code enforcement in the inspection that produced 869 code violations. Re-read on 2026-08-20 because the page had carried the ages as 61 and 30 and the second man's name without his surname, and the correct form was in this source all along.
WIS-TV (Columbia, SC), Columbia Housing Authority fined for more than 800 violations found at Allen Benedict Court, 19 February 2020 , The citation count, the violation total and what the citations described (secondary index, accessed 2026-08-20)
The enforcement outcome, from the same local newsroom that carried the incident itself: twenty-six citations covering more than eight hundred individual violations, described as including exposed wiring, expired fire extinguishers, broken smoke detectors and missing carbon monoxide detectors. It replaces a commercial carbon monoxide site that offered a follow-up analysis of the same inspection findings. That citation was the last of its kind anywhere in these records, and the page's authority rests on the incident being documented rather than retold, so a second-hand analysis sitting beside first-hand reporting was the weakest link on it.

Disclaimer: This page explains the law as it stood on August 24, 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

Which South Carolina code sections drive CO alarm duties for homes and rentals?

The answer is spread across three, and which one governs depends on the building. Under adopted South Carolina code pathways. The 2021 South Carolina Residential Code applies IRC Section R315 requirements to one-family and two-family residential contexts, and rental operators in covered properties should treat those requirements as enforceable building-code obligations. Compliance should be documented at permit and inspection checkpoints, not only after occupancy complaints. South Carolina files should retain section citations, placement records, and correction evidence for each dwelling.

What penalty exposure exists in South Carolina for unresolved violations?

South Carolina Code section 6-9-80 provides civil penalty structure for building-code violations. The statute allows a first violation penalty up to $200, then higher exposure up to $2,000 after cure opportunity, with each continuing day treated as a separate offense in covered cases. This means delay in remediation can materially increase risk. South Carolina operators should track notice dates, cure deadlines, and reinspection results in the same compliance record. Management teams should also keep legal review notes for repeat findings.

Which lodging and hotel settings are covered in South Carolina code?

Lodging answers Section 915 of the adopted 2021 building and fire codes, and Section 1103.9 of the fire code where the building already stands. Hotel and Group R compliance should therefore be reviewed through the adopted building and fire code mix, not through residential text alone. Operators should classify occupancy and trigger conditions before installation decisions are finalized. South Carolina lodging files should store occupancy determination notes with the applicable section references.

Where should alarms be installed under South Carolina residential code?

Section R315.3 of the adopted 2021 South Carolina Residential Code puts the alarm outside each separate sleeping area in the immediate vicinity of the bedrooms, and inside a bedroom that holds a fuel-burning appliance or has one in its attached bathroom. There is no per-level rule for carbon monoxide, which surprises people who are thinking of R314.3 and smoke alarms. Interconnection and power come from R315.5 and R315.6, and should be verified against the adopted edition in force when the work is permitted. Teams should avoid generic templates and document room-level decisions for each property. South Carolina inspection packets should keep plan markups and installed-device evidence with section citations.

Are all-electric South Carolina units always exempt from alarm duties?

Not always. South Carolina exemption analysis should be based on adopted trigger language and occupancy context, including attached-garage and other code-defined risk pathways where applicable. Owners should obtain local interpretation before recording an exemption decision, especially in mixed-use or multifamily settings. A written local determination provides stronger defensibility than assumptions. South Carolina compliance files should preserve the exemption basis and the jurisdiction that approved it. Keep dated approval records with property turnover packets.

For Carolinas operators, what South Carolina control differs most from Florida practice?

South Carolina uses statewide adopted code pathways plus Title 6 Chapter 9 enforcement language, while Florida operators work from a different mix of state and local implementation detail by occupancy. Regional teams should maintain separate Southeast compliance matrices instead of one shared template. For side-by-side planning, review Florida CO detector laws and compare trigger events, penalty posture, and inspection workflow. South Carolina teams should capture state-specific enforcement timelines before launching regional policy updates.

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