Queensland New Legislation | What Is A Bedroom?

Although the answer to this seems relatively straightforward, it can become quite intricate and complex from a smoke alarm compliance point of view.

With an increase in multi-generational living and more young adults opting to live at home with their parents for longer, traditional bedrooms are not so ‘traditional’ anymore. Garages or media rooms with no windows are now more commonly converted into spaces in which people sleep, in order to accommodate extra occupants in a home.

Why do we need to define the conditions of a bedroom, you ask?

Strict new smoke alarm legislation means Queensland households will become the safest in the country and ensures occupants will be alerted to house fires as early as possible, with the new mandate for additional, interconnected photoelectric style smoke alarms required to be installed in bedrooms and other key areas of properties.

Now that smoke alarms are required in every bedroom in a house, it is now imperative we have a crystal clear description of what constitutes a bedroom, so we install the correct number and type of smoke alarms in a property to meet new compliance standards and ensure the highest level of safety.

In order to ensure consistency across the board, Smoke Alarm Solutions have created a very clear definition of a bedroom, which can be located on our website in our Terms of Service.

Smoke Alarm Solutions defines a bedroom as a habitable room that:

• is enclosed by a door, and
• has a window or skylight, and
• has walls that meet the ceiling, and
• has a built in wardrobe, where the property has built-in wardrobes

The ceiling height in a room will have no impact on whether it is classified as a bedroom or not because many Queensland properties have rooms with ceilings lower than the standard 2.4 metres and tenant safety is the number one priority.

In order to ensure transparency for landlords, when we discover a space is being used as a room in which people sleep but does not meet our definition of a bedroom, we will notify them via our Compliance Report and recommend the installation of additional smoke alarms to enhance the safety of the property’s occupants.

We believe our definition will reduce any confusion or grey area for our property managers and property owners whilst ensuring compliance to the new Queensland smoke alarm legislation.

Important Stats

• 31% of all the properties we attended in November that had attempted to upgrade to the 2022 legislation using 3rd party provider failed to comply.
• 43% of smoke alarms were non-compliant to the Australian Standard 3786:2014.
• 23% of smoke alarms were non-compliant as they were installed at the wrong distance from lights, fan blades, air conditioning vents, and walls.

Source: https://www.smokealarmsolutions.com.au/what-is-a-standard-bedroom