Plumbing laws
Searching for a licensed plumber
Using licensed plumbers and drainers is the best way to ensure your plumbing complies with regulations, and minimises unnecessary risk to your family’s health and safety.
Check your plumber is licensed by searching online or contacting the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) on 139 333.
Notifiable work
Notifiable work is the work a plumber or drainer can do without a local government permit or any requirement for mandatory inspections.
Notifiable work includes most plumbing and drainage work performed in existing homes, including:
- doing kitchen and bathroom plumbing renovations
- installing or replacing hot water heaters, including electric, solar or heat pump hot water heaters
- installing additional fixtures, such as toilets, showers and sinks
- extending or altering pipe work.
Read more about notifiable work.
Do it yourself
There is some plumbing work that you can do yourself or have done by an unlicensed person. For sanitary plumbing and sanitary drainage, this includes:
- cleaning or maintaining ground-level grates to traps on sanitary drains
- replacing caps to ground-level inspection openings on sanitary drains
- maintaining an above or below ground irrigation system to dispose of effluent from an onsite sewerage facility.
For water plumbing, this includes:
- installing or maintaining an irrigation or lawn watering system downstream from an isolating valve, tap or backflow prevention device on the supply pipe for the irrigation or lawn watering system
- replacing a jumper valve or washer in a tap
- changing a shower head
- replacing a drop valve washer, float valve washer or suction cup rubber in a toilet cistern.
Find out more about Queensland plumbing laws and regulations including who is affected by the legislation.