What your own hands may do, state by state

The finding this guide rests on

Across Australia the householder’s legal share of the plumbing is small. Victoria’s plumbing regulations let anyone repair or replace tap washers and do other minor tap repairs in a dwelling. Queensland’s guide to unregulated plumbing puts replacing a jumper valve or washer in a tap on its list. WA allows maintenance or repair of a tap, except a thermostatic mixing tap. Behind the tap, the states’ own pages say the work is a licensed person’s.

The name has a gift in it too. The page on which Sydney Water tells a confident householder they may change a tap washer is called, in its own address, general plumbing information, and the state’s regulator’s page says a licence or certificate is needed to do any plumbing work. The name, the subject and its one real disagreement meet at a tap.

The washer, in eight jurisdictions

This is the strip from the home page, opened out. Each row is one jurisdiction, the words in the second column are its own term for householder work, and the third and fourth columns are what its own sources say about the washer and about the plumbing behind it.

The pipe behind the wall

Every jurisdiction that names a householder’s share names it narrowly, and the plumbing behind the wall is where the share ends. WA: apart from the listed tasks, all water supply, sanitary and drainage plumbing work is a licensed plumber’s or permit-holder’s. Queensland: all regulated plumbing and drainage work must be performed by a licensed plumber and drainer. NSW: a licence or certificate is needed to do any plumbing, draining or gasfitting work whatever it costs. Tasmania puts work outside its first category with a licensed plumber, and penalties apply to unlicensed work.

Two of the remaining states leave a line to read rather than a list. In Victoria the regulation that allows the washer is headed as the plumbing work that unlicensed or unregistered persons may carry out, so the named work is the exception and no pipe work is in it. In South Australia the state’s consumer agency says anyone who operates without a licence, or works outside its conditions, could face penalties of up to $20,000.

Unlicensed work carries a price in the eastern states too. NSW can fine an individual $22,000 and a company $110,000 for doing unlicensed plumbing, draining or gasfitting work, and fines of up to $1,500 a breach apply for failing to supervise an unlicensed worker. Victoria’s Building and Plumbing Commission says it monitors for unregistered and unlicensed work, and can prosecute any person or company, not only registered practitioners. Anyone can report suspected unregistered or unlicensed building or plumbing work to it.

One place the answer is the same everywhere: gas

Every one of the eight jurisdictions’ own pages here puts gas work in a licensed gasfitter’s hands. Victoria: gas and electricity are inherently dangerous, and it is illegal and potentially fatal for unlicensed and unqualified people to undertake any gasfitting work, so do not ever undertake gas work yourself. NSW: only licensed gasfitters can undertake repairs or renovations involving gas, and all gas installations must be carried out by a licensed gasfitter. Queensland: only a licensed gasfitter can carry out gas work, which includes installing, removing, altering, repairing, servicing, testing or certifying the gas system, including all pipework and connections. WA: the law requires that all gasfitting work is carried out by a person who holds a licence from Building and Energy.

South Australia: the owner is responsible for the gas installation, and should use a licensed gas fitter for any gas work required. Tasmania: leaks between the meter and the property, and inside it, are the owner’s to have fixed by a licensed gas fitter. The ACT: use a licensed gas fitter for maintenance and servicing work. The Northern Territory: you must be licensed to undertake gasfitting work, under the territory’s dangerous goods regulations.

That is the whole of the gas share in these pages: eight jurisdictions, and every one of them assigns gas work to a licensed gasfitter. Queensland’s gas safety page is one of the pages that lays out what the work includes.

When the answer is that you must ask

Two jurisdictions in the table name no householder work at all in the pages this guide draws on: the ACT and the NT. That is not a statement that the work is banned there. It is that the pages this guide draws on do not say either way for the ACT, and the drawing leaves that part uncoloured for that reason, with the body to ask named in the cell.

For the ACT, that body is Access Canberra, which keeps the public registers of the territory’s occupational licences. The registers show a licence’s status, including expired, suspended, surrendered and cancelled licences, and where applicable disciplinary action taken against a holder appears under their details. Access Canberra also maintains the public registers for all business licences, and says some tradies need a valid licence to work in the territory. The public registers page is the index of what it holds.

For the NT, NT WorkSafe licenses gasfitters and publishes what gasfitting work covers: any work involved in installing, repairing, removing or altering a fuel gas system, gas appliance, gas container, gas main, pipe, flue or other fitting used in connection with the supply or use of fuel gas. The territory’s plumbing and drainers licensing is run by its own licensing service.

What the washer itself is

The washer sits at the foot of the jumper valve, and the rules name both. Victoria: the repair or replacement of tap washers and other minor tap repairs in a dwelling, whether or not the person doing the work owns or occupies it. Queensland: replacing a jumper valve or washer in a tap, on the state’s unregulated list, which the state warns still has to meet the minimum standards of work under the legislation and codes. WA: maintenance or repair of a tap other than a thermostatic mixing tap, and another person may do it for you provided there is no payment involved.

Two further states name the part without giving the householder a say in it. South Australia’s certificates page lists changing tap washers among the work that needs no certificate of compliance, and installing domestic tapware alongside it. The pipe that feeds the tap is the drawing’s copper, and for the reason the sections above give.