I've been working on getting licensed for a couple of months now and it seems that every day I learn about something new I have to do. Yesterday I went for coffee with a fellow provider to get some tips and have her look over my handbook. We went over all of the steps and she told me that I have to have my fire alarms hard wired. What? Now I have to get an electrician and have holes put in my walls. Three to be exact because I need them on each floor, along with fire extinguishers. So, I also have to buy 2 more fire extinguishers. Before I do anything drastic though, I'm going to call licensing and see if that is correct.
I'll probably have to put a railing for my stairs and wreck my beautiful wall. Not crazy about either. I know, safety first.
Good news is that I finished my Family Daycare Training course and received my certificate!!

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Personally, I would have the smoke detectors hard wired/battery backup for each bedroom/sleeping area in addition to each floor. For example, we have a 3 bedroom house, plus one on each floor = 5. It is the standards for most new builds/new construction fire codes for residential (not just daycare). That was the standard 5 years ago in my state. I would do better than your daycare regs, because I cant imagine the daycare regs not getting stricter for you sooner than later in this issue.

BUT, even the above...that wasn't enough for my daycare regs, because the sleeping area for the daycare kids is supposed to have a smoke detector within 10 feet. My downstairs smoke detector is in the middle of the downstairs...about 20 feet from the sleeping area (which is a family room off the kitchen, very open floor plan and I wasn't going to put a detector essentially in my kitchen---they are super sensitive & would go off every time I turn on the oven or make toast). I never did that one, and didn't get 'caught'...but this, among a bazillion other things helped make the decision to turn in my license.

Good luck!

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I'm not sure where you are located Sparrow, but I would definately call licensing and ask about the smoke detectors. My house has hard wired smoke detectors w/battery back up and licensing said nope-only way they would ok hard wired smoke detectors was if it was connected to an outside place (like adt). I had to put up battery operated smoke detectors right next to the hard wired ones.

I do understand about jumping through hoops. It feels like it will never end sometimes.

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what state are you in??

I dont have mine hardwired, they are battery operated and wireless...so if one goes off it sets off the other ones...it is not required in my state to do it that way, but it is what I wanted and it was signed off by the fire Marshall.

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I am not sure if you have this info or not but this seems to be an excellent link explaining the requirements for child care homes where you are. (Sorry if I got your location wrong...I am not positive) http://www.bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bcl...de/12_332_2007

The above link was taken from this site: http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/ccf/faci...n-reports.html

And I found this checklist that says your smoke alarms must all be wired and interconnected for simultaneous activation and must be present in sleeping areas. It also says you ust have a fire extinguisher by all exits (but I don't know if that means for day homes or centers.

http://www.ehow.com/list_6469869_fir...-columbia.html

Hope SOME of that info was helpful...

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Thanks for the information BlackCat. I appreciate the time you took to look for the info. My husband is going to hardwire them. Ugh, another expense.

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