Methodology

We state a rule only when we have read it in one of these:

• Statutes and rules published by the state legislature or agency, such as the Florida Statutes.
• Adopted codes and standards, such as the fire code edition a state or county has adopted, read in the code text itself.
• Fire marshal (AHJ) documents: guidelines, permit checklists, ordinances and official web pages from the fire department or building department that enforces the rule.
• Federal sources, such as FCC rules on signal boosters.

News stories, vendor blogs and forum posts can point us to a document, but we never state a rule on their word alone.

1. Open the document at its official address and read the section that sets the rule.
2. Record it: address, title, publisher, type of source and the date we read it. That date is the "verified" date you see on the page.
3. Cite the exact section next to the rule, for example F.S. 633.202(18)(h)2, so you can find it in seconds.
4. Write it plainly without changing what it means. Conditions stay attached to the number they belong to.

An example of why conditions matter: Florida's statute mentions 12,000 square feet as part of an exemption for buildings under that size with no underground areas (F.S. 633.202(18)(h)2). It is not a statewide rule that every building over 12,000 square feet needs a system, and we do not present it as one.

If we cannot find a published threshold, signal level, test interval or deadline for a jurisdiction, the page says "Not published; confirm with the fire marshal". We do not fill gaps with a neighboring county's rule, a model code default or an installer's rule of thumb.

The building checker compares your answers with the published rules for your jurisdiction, starting with the state and then the county or city. Exemptions are checked first. An answer you leave as "not sure" never counts as yes or no; it becomes an open question in the result. Every verdict names the rule and section it relied on and ends with the same advice: confirm with your fire marshal (AHJ). The checker gives guidance, not engineering advice.

Two rules about how the checker reads Florida law:

• Low-confidence local pages. Where we could not read a city's or county's own documents (confidence "low"), an answer that would say "required" becomes "a radio signal test is the way to know". A statewide exemption in the statute still settles it: those buildings need no signal assessment (F.S. 633.202(18)(h)), and a local fire marshal may not require more than the state (F.S. 633.202(18)(i)).
• Condominiums. The statute's exemptions for low-rise and wood-frame buildings say "apartments". Condominium buildings are normally classed as apartment occupancies, so the checker applies those exemptions to condos too. Confirm with your fire marshal.
• Height left blank. The wood-frame exemption is for buildings 75 feet or less (F.S. 633.202(18)(a)). If you leave height blank but give the number of stories, the checker counts at least 7 feet per story, so a building of 11 or more stories cannot match it. The story count is never used to make a rule apply.

• Every source is re-checked at least every 180 days, and sooner when a reader reports a change or a jurisdiction adopts a new code edition.
• Every re-check is logged in the changelog, including re-checks that found no change, and the page's verified date moves forward.
• Pages not re-checked within 365 days are marked as out of date until we check them again.

ERRCSCheck is funded by installers who pay WhenLeads for alerts and quote requests (see how we make money). They have no say over what the reference pages say. There are no paid listings, rankings or "recommended installer" badges.

Found something wrong or out of date? Tell us through the contact form with the page address. We check it against the source, fix it if needed, and log it in the changelog.