Patios near you

Unlike paving, which the NSW exempt development criteria control by condition rather than by size, a patio is capped by numbers. The criteria disqualify a structure from being exempt where it has an area of more than 25 square metres, or where it causes the total floor area of all such structures on the lot to be more than 15 per cent of the ground floor area of the dwelling for a lot larger than 300 square metres, or more than 25 square metres for a lot up to 300 square metres. So a second structure counts against the first, and the allowance is tied to the size of the house and the block rather than being a flat figure.

Height and position are capped too. The structure must not be more than 3 metres at its highest point above existing ground level, must not have an enclosing wall higher than 1.4 metres, and must not have a floor height of more than one metre above the existing ground level. It must be located behind the building line of any road frontage, and set back from each lot boundary by at least 5 metres in Zones RU1, RU2, RU3, RU4, RU6 or R5, or 900 millimetres in any other zone. Metal components must be low reflective, factory pre-coloured materials, which is why raw galvanised sheet is often knocked back. In a heritage conservation area or a draft heritage conservation area the structure must sit behind the building line of any road frontage.

Shade structures are treated as their own category with their own limits, requiring a height no greater than 3 metres from existing ground level and the same 5 metre or 900 millimetre setbacks, located behind the building line and not in a foreshore area, and built to be structurally adequate and installed in accordance with the manufacturer's specifications so as to comply with the Building Code of Australia. If your design exceeds any of these caps you are not stuck: complying development is the fast-tracked pathway that combines planning and construction approval for straightforward work, determined by a council or an accredited certifier and issued in as little as 20 days, with sign-off by a certifying authority because the works are larger than exempt development. Confirm the figures for your own state, council and address before drawing anything.

An unroofed paved area and a roofed one are different projects wearing the same name. The roof introduces a structure that has to be designed for wind uplift, footings that have to be placed before the slab is poured rather than after, and a rainwater catchment that did not exist before. That last one surprises people most: a roofed patio collects storm water that previously fell on open ground, and it has to be guttered and piped into the stormwater system like any other roof, not allowed to sheet off the edge onto the paving.

The roof also changes the paperwork. It brings the structure squarely inside the height and enclosing-wall caps in the exempt criteria, it makes the structure count towards the total floor area of all such structures on the lot, and it changes how the building is classified. The National Construction Code defines a Class 1 building as a dwelling and a Class 10 building as a non-habitable building or structure, with Class 10a described as a non-habitable building including a private garage, carport, shed or the like, and Class 10b covering structures such as fences, retaining walls and swimming pools. Which classification your structure falls into determines which provisions apply to it, so it is worth having the certifier or contractor state it rather than assuming.

Finally the roof changes the bushfire position, and it changes it twice over. The exempt criteria require that a structure located on bushfire prone land and less than 5 metres from a house be constructed of non-combustible material. Separately, the National Construction Code requires that a Class 1 building, or a Class 10a building or deck associated with a Class 1 building, constructed in a designated bushfire prone area be built in accordance with AS 3959 or the NASH Standard for steel framed construction in bushfire areas. Establish whether the block is designated before you choose a roofing material, not after the quote is accepted.

The height at which a patio slab meets the house is the detail that decides whether the finished job causes problems, and it is set on day one. The ABCB Housing Provisions require the finished slab to stand above the finished ground level next to it, and the figure changes with what that ground is made of: 100 millimetres above finished ground level in low rainfall intensity areas or sandy, well-drained areas, 50 millimetres above impermeable paved or concrete areas that slope away from the building, and 150 millimetres in any other case. A patio slab poured level with the house floor, or a paved area built up over the slab edge, quietly removes that separation.

The ground around the building has to keep falling away from it as well, and the patio must not interrupt that. Where a roofed structure has been added, the guttering and downpipes serving it need somewhere to discharge into the stormwater system. Where the patio sits in a courtyard or against a boundary fence, ask specifically how water leaves that pocket during a heavy storm, because an enclosed paved area with a blocked outlet becomes a shallow pond against the wall of the house.

Then give the concrete time. The Housing Provisions specify slab concrete for housing with a strength at 28 days of not less than 20 megapascals, denoted N20 grade, a 20 millimetre maximum nominal aggregate size and a nominal 100 millimetre slump, and they require slab surfaces including edges to be moist cured for 7 days, with loading of slabs by stacked materials or building plant prohibited for a minimum of 7 days after pouring. Keep the delivery dockets showing the grade and slump, and agree in writing when furniture, a spa or a barbecue may go on the slab, because early loading damage is not a warranty claim.

Of everything on a patio quote, the detail most likely to cost you later is the one nobody points at: how the new slab meets the existing house. Subterranean termites are a live risk across a very large share of Australia, and the ABCB Housing Provisions answer it by requiring a managed system wherever a house and its associated structures stand in an area of known risk. What matters for a patio, though, is not that general obligation but one specific line in the code's table of acceptable systems.

The important row in that table, for anyone adding a patio, is the one for attachments to buildings. It calls for a termite management system to the attachment, and an inspection zone between the attachment and the building. In other words the code anticipates exactly what a patio slab is — a new structure butting up against an existing house — and asks for a deliberate, inspectable separation rather than two slabs poured tight against one another. A patio built without it can give termites a concealed path into the house that no one can see during a routine inspection.

Two practical consequences follow. The system has to be recorded: the Housing Provisions require a durable notice stating the termite management system used, the date of installation, the life expectancy of any chemical as listed on the appropriate authority's register label, and the installer's or manufacturer's recommendations for the scope and frequency of future inspections. And in Queensland, chemical termite management is licensed work of any value, unlike most building work which is licensed only above the commission's threshold. Ask who is doing it, under what licence, and where the durable notice will be fixed.

Because summer runs from December to February and winter from June to August, the patio is being built for the opposite half of the year to the one a northern guide assumes. The season you are designing for is a hot one, which puts shade, orientation and afternoon sun at the centre of the layout rather than at the edge of it. Where the structure faces decides whether it is usable in January, and no amount of roofing fixes a west-facing alfresco with nothing to the side of it.

Construction timing follows the same logic as other outdoor work. In the southern states the middle of the year brings the softest ground for footings and the slowest concrete sets, while the tropical north splits into a wet and a dry season and substantial work is realistically booked in the dry. Hot, dry, windy conditions bring their own problem for a fresh slab, pulling water out of the surface faster than it can bleed, which is why summer pours are often started early and need a genuine curing plan rather than a promise.

Bushfire prone land runs to its own calendar again. If the structure has to be non-combustible because it sits within 5 metres of the house on designated land, or has to comply with AS 3959 or the NASH steel framed standard, that is settled at design stage rather than during the fire season. Clearing leaf litter out of the gutters of a roofed patio and out of the junction between the structure and the house is a job for the run-up to summer, not the middle of it.

The slab and the structure can fall to different licence classes, which is why a single quote sometimes conceals two trades. In New South Wales the structural landscaping category covers the construction of external landscape features and non-habitable structures, with examples that expressly include cabanas, pergolas, decks and non-habitable shelters as well as paths and other paving of any material, and a contractor licence is required above the value threshold under the Home Building Act 1989. In Queensland, the QBCC structural landscaping trade class covers preparing, fabricating and erecting carports, decking, fences, gazebos, pergolas and retaining walls of a height that do not require engineering certification under a local law, along with preparing the site and laying paving or concrete not intended to carry vehicular traffic. A QBCC licence is required for building work above the commission's value threshold, and chemical termite management is licensed at any value.

No licence class displaces the Australian Consumer Law guarantees the ACCC enforces, and the one that does the most work on a patio is fitness for a stated purpose — a purpose only counts if you actually stated it. Because almost everything that goes wrong with a patio is invisible by the time the job looks finished, put those purposes into the written scope: that the structure must be non-combustible because the block is designated bushfire prone, that an inspection zone is to be left where the slab meets the house, that the roof is to be guttered into the stormwater system, and that the finished levels must keep water running away from the wall.

On LokalMatch you describe the patio once, saying whether you want it roofed or open, roughly how large it is, whether it attaches to the house, what the ground does across the site and whether the block is bushfire prone, and matched patio, pergola and landscaping contractors contact you directly. Those businesses pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not build patios, does not quote or set prices, does not obtain approvals for you, and does not vet, rank or recommend any business, so confirming the licence class, the approval pathway and the termite detailing remains your job.