For the sake of lurkers or others reading here who may be led offtrack I feel it might be wise to add here that the NEC does not address the location or requirements for smoke detectors. Some of the above posts use the word code, and I believe they mean building code when they refer to that word. The IRC seems to have more stringent requirements than the NFPA suggests in its recomendations. The Universal building code allows area's of a dwelling not touched by new remodel work to use battery type, not interlocked to the other smokes in the locations normally required in new construction to have smoke alarms. I think the IRC says that if it is possible to wire those untouched in area's of a dwelling with interlocked smoke alarms depending on the availability of attics or crawlspaces and so forth you must. I have no idea what the old Southern Standard Building Code would say on the subject, when I used to work under that one, smokes weren't even required anyplace yet.
