Texas Rules for Hotel Smoke Detectors

Texas law lays out specific requirements for smoke detectors in hotel rooms. Hotel operators must provide smoke detectors for all customers, including hearing-impaired customers, and must make sure smoke detectors meet fire standards. If a hotel operator does not comply with this law, he faces criminal penalties even if no fire breaks out as a result.

Hearing-Impaired Smoke Detectors

• Texas law requires hotels to install one smoke detector meant for hearing-impaired persons for every 60 rooms in the hotel; however, hotels are not required to install more than five hearing-impaired smoke detectors. If a guest requests a room with a hearing-impaired smoke detector, it is against Texas law not to place him in such a room. If no rooms with hearing-impaired smoke detectors are available, the hotel operator may give the person a regular room and install a portable smoke detector meant to alert hearing-impaired people in case of fire.

General Smoke Detector Law

• Hotel operators in Texas must install smoke detectors in every room meant for guests to sleep in. Smoke detectors must emit audible alarms throughout the room if they come into contact with smoke, except for hearing-impaired smoke detectors, which must use a strobe light for the same purpose.

Penalties for Failure to Comply

• Failure to install smoke detectors as required are considered Class B misdemeanors in Texas, punishable by a fine up to $2,000, up to 180 days in jail, or both. The hotel operator commits a separate misdemeanor for every day that he fails to comply with the law.