Five rooms, five floors, and what comes with each
Each room carries the rule that comes with its floor in that place. Open a room to read it through.
Changing the floor in an apartment needs permission (NSW)
The NSW strata page says you need permission to change the walls, floors or ceilings, while cosmetics that touch neither the structure nor waterproofing do not need it.
Your Home gives the reason the rule matters upstairs: hard flooring on an upper floor should be acoustically insulated, usually a requirement in strata.
Licence lines for floor work differ by state (QLD, NSW, VIC)
Queensland's QBCC licenses floor finishing and covering (hard sector) as its own trade class; NSW's page for wall and floor tiling asks for a contractor licence over $5,000 in labour and materials.
Consumer Affairs Victoria says building practitioners must be registered with the Building and Plumbing Commission for work worth more than $10,000, with work involving only one of the trades its page lists exempt, and that registration also applies to work that combines skills or needs a building permit, the permit work regardless of value.
Insulation and ventilation under the floor
Over a suspended floor, Your Home says to add bulk insulation between the joists and seal the gaps in the floorboards, or put a building membrane under the joists.
Waterproofing is trade work; a licence or certificate (NSW)
NSW's tiling page says wall and floor tiling work can include waterproofing wet areas to get them ready for tiling, and in NSW the waterproofing carries a licence:
Waterproofing work is trade work, and you must have a licence or certificate to do it.
Your Home's line for it is short: waterproofing should be done by a professional, and its failures are among the most expensive building defects in Australia. The same page says you will need licensed experts for waterproofing work.
Old backing: friable, for a licensed removalist (VIC, SA)
Some vinyl floor coverings have an asbestos backing, which WorkSafe Victoria counts as friable. In South Australia, the state's page for home owners says anyone removing friable material must use a licensed asbestos removalist. South Australia's flood-damage page and WorkSafe Victoria both recommend one for taking a backed covering up. The laundry guide sets out where South Australia and Victoria put the job in a licence class.
The five floors
- Boards
- The living room and the bedroom.
- Tile grid
- The bathroom, the one wet room on the plan.
- Carpet, stippled
- The hall, the floor that runs the length of the house.
- Vinyl, a flat tone
- The laundry.
- A dashed outline
- Marks old vinyl and the underlay that came with it. What is under there decides who takes it up, and each state says something different.