New UL Smoke Alarm Requirements in California

I just attended the monthly CAFAA (California Automatic Fire Alarm Association) meeting and was surprised to find out the new requirements set forth by UL for single and multi-station smoke alarms.  Now these are just for the smoke alarms in household applications.  Not to be confused with system smoke detectors (tied to a building fire alarm system).  The State of California has let a crazy requirement slip through and become adopted for these stand alone household smoke alarms to take effect January 1, 2014.  Get this, the smoke alarms are now required to have the following:

1. If the stand alone single station or multi-station smoke alarm is battery operated, the battery has to be sealed in the detector, non-removable, and have a lifetime of 10 years.
2. The smoke alarm has to be monitored for end of life
3. The smoke alarm has to have the manufacture date and installation date clearly visible
4. The smoke alarm must have a Hush feature

Now some manufactures have smoke alarms out there that have some of these features including the Hush feature, 10 year battery and manufacture/installation dates.  Now the tricky one is the monitoring for "End of Life".  The California State Fire Marshall's (CSFM) office reads this as the necessity to provide smoke detectors tied to a building fire alarm system as they can be monitored for dirty sensing elements.  I read it differently.  Manufacturers such as Kidde have detectors with a 10 year battery life.  With that said, the detector will chirp when the battery is at a low level indicating in my mind, "End of Life".  If the detector starts to chirp, it is notifying you that the battery is near dead resulting in the "End of Life" for the smoke alarm detector.

The CSFM has also stated that these requirements are not going to be in affect for wireless battery operated smoke alarms as they report back to a fire alarm system.

Any thoughts on this?

UL Requires Site Specific 2-Wire Smoke Detector Compatability

Word on the street is that UL (Underwriters Laboratories) is stating new requirements for the certification in listing compatibility for 2-wire smoke detectors.  If you or your customers have a an FACP (fire alarm control panel) with 2-wire conventional smoke detectors you may be affected by this.

If you have the need to replace 2-wire smoke detectors on your existing fire alarm control panel and cannot find UL listed detectors, then you need to know this:   UL is toying with the idea of site specific testing for the certification in listing 2-wire smoke detectors.

What does this mean for you or your customers?

Answer:  In the case of an older panel that does not have 2-wire smoke detectors Listed for compatibility, you will have to pay UL to come out to the site and perform their testing.  Now this is not set in stone but it seems pretty crazy to me.  I am not sure of the pricing for this so-called certification process but I know one thing, "It can'y be cheap!".

At this point, you have to ask your customer or yourself, at what point do you seriously consider upgrading your fire life safety system?  I am reasonably sure the this testing process from UL will impact your customers budget as well as their schedule.

Like I said, earlier, this is just the word on the street and I cannot verify any of this information.  With that said, it is something to consider and look into if you are currently in this situation.