Right now the poll indicates that 67% of us are enforcing section 313 of the 2006 IRC to it's fullest. Maybe some of you are doing 2009 IRC to it's fullest.
The reason I really started this was to see if what inspectors and AHJ's tell me they are doing versus what contractors tell me they are being required to do. Since this village went to the 100% enforcment policy on this issue, pretty much a day does not go by where someone calls me and states the standard "other villages don't require this" or "is this something new?, I haven't heard of it" or "other villages only make us put in battery powered smokes" or similar.
So it really got me thinking about it. It took me in the direction of following the money. Who stands to benefit from this? Outside of the manufacturers, I would say either the contractor or the electricians, right? So if this requirement is supposed to be enforced 100%, why didn't I get more calls from electricians demanding I enforce this section so that they could easily make more money? I never got that call, not once. If anybody had a stake in this it was them and they don't seem to think it's worth mentioning when a village does not enforce it. And lets face it, in this economy, when you have an adopted code that says "do it" the electricians only stand to gain, yet no calls from them. The general contractors on the other hand keep calling me to complain. When they get done they then have the homeowner complain.
It has led me to believe that more villages do not enforce this section to 100%. So like I said I wanted to see what was what. So far 67% say yes, 28% say compromise. And nobody has chosen that battery operated work just fine even though contractors seem to be under the impression more villages allow this.