Plumbing Installation near you

Queensland draws the clearest line. Notifiable work lets a licensed plumber or drainer carry out defined work without a local government permit or mandatory inspections, and the examples include kitchen and bathroom additions, extensions or renovations, installing or replacing water heaters, and installing or relocating fixtures such as toilets, showers, basins and kitchen sinks. Plumbing and drainage work associated with new construction is permit work, not notifiable work, which means a new house or a major new structure follows the council permit path instead. Notifiable work must be registered with the QBCC within ten business days of the invoice being issued, and the owner receives a copy of the form.

In Victoria the mechanism is the compliance certificate. It is required when the total value of the work including materials, appliances, labour and GST exceeds a set value in the plumbing regulations, and always for work such as the construction, installation or alteration of any below-ground sanitary drain or associated gullies, gas appliance installation or relocation, and consumer gas piping. Only a licensed plumber can issue one, it must reach the customer within five days of completion, and where applicable it records the water authority consent number and confirms that an as-laid plan has been lodged with the relevant water authority.

New South Wales asks for a Notice of Work before starting work that requires inspection, a Certificate of Compliance at completion, and, for drainage work, a Sewer Service Diagram at the completion of the drainage work, with copies to the property owner and lodgement with Building Commission NSW or the local plumbing regulator. Western Australia's major plumbing work, which includes new and additional sanitary fixtures and new or replacement water heaters, needs a notice of intention at least 24 hours beforehand and a certificate of compliance within five working days. None of this is optional and none of it should be an extra on your invoice after the fact.

WaterMark is the certification scheme that decides whether a plumbing or drainage product may lawfully be installed in Australia. The Australian Building Codes Board manages and administers it, the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand accredits the conformity assessment bodies, and those bodies evaluate and certify products against approved specifications before they appear on the WaterMark Product Database.

Not everything needs it. The scheme publishes a Schedule of Products that are predetermined as requiring certification, and a Schedule of Excluded Products predetermined as not requiring it. A product on neither list, proposed for use in an installation, has to be assessed in accordance with the scheme's manual before it can be used. That is the practical reason a plumber may refuse to install the imported vanity set or the bargain mixer you sourced yourself: they are the one certifying the installation.

Water efficiency is built into the Code rather than left to your conscience. The deemed-to-satisfy provisions for cold water services require a tap or outlet used for a shower, basin, kitchen sink or laundry trough to be a minimum of 3 Star WELS rated and to discharge not more than 9 litres per minute. A water closet must have a dual flushing mechanism, and the Code applies a minimum 3 Star WELS rating discharging not more than 6 litres or 4.5 litres for a full flush, with stated tolerances on those volumes. AS/NZS 6400 provides the basis for the rating and labelling of products under the mandatory Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards scheme.

For a homeowner choosing fixtures, the star rating on the label is therefore doing two jobs at once: it tells you what the fixture will cost to run, and it tells your plumber whether it can lawfully be installed in that position. A rain shower head that looks luxurious in a showroom and is rated above the permitted flow is not a compromise you get to make.

Australian installations often carry site conditions that would be unusual elsewhere. Where a cold water service is installed in a designated bushfire prone area, the Code's deemed-to-satisfy provisions require compliance with AS 3959, the standard for construction of buildings in bushfire-prone areas, so the way the service is run and protected is part of the bushfire design rather than an afterthought.

Rainwater is the other common add-on. The Code has a dedicated Part for rainwater services, and where a cold water service is used to top up a rainwater tank it must be in accordance with AS/NZS 3500.1, which is why the top-up arrangement and its backflow protection are matters for a licensed plumber and not a hardware-store fitting. A tank plumbed to toilets or the laundry also brings marking and cross-connection control into play, because the drinking water supply has to stay protected.

Finally, a new service has to deliver drinking water that has not been intentionally heated at a temperature of less than 40°C, which in practice means thinking about where the cold pipe runs in a hot roof space or an uninsulated wall in northern Australia. It is a design question at installation time, and an expensive one to revisit later.

New plumbing should leave you with a folder, not just a working tap. Ask for the compliance certificate, notifiable work registration or Certificate of Compliance as the case may be, the sewer service diagram if drainage work was done, product documentation for the fixtures and water heater, and the licence number of the person who certified the work. In Victoria the compliance certificate also records the water authority consent number where one applies and confirms that the as-laid plan has been lodged with the relevant water authority.

The licence itself carries protection. Victoria requires licensed plumbers to hold public liability insurance to a prescribed minimum level of cover before a licence is issued or renewed. Western Australia makes licensed plumbing contractors responsible for all plumbing work they perform for six years from completion. On top of that, the Australian Consumer Law guarantees apply to the service: it must be provided with due care and skill and be fit for the purpose you made known.