What you can and can't legally DIY in Victoria

Step by step

1. Plumbing: maintenance yes, installation no

   You may replace a worn tap washer, swap a showerhead for a like-for-like screw-on, connect washing machine hoses, plunge and clear traps and grates, and turn the water on and off. You may not install or replace taps or mixers, move any fixture, cut into any pipe, install a toilet suite, or touch anything pressure-sealed. Note that Victoria — unlike Western Australia, which published a homeowner exemption list in 2024 — has no official DIY plumbing list at all. The regulator's position is simply that plumbing work needs a licensed practitioner; the written exemption covers tap repairs and a 3-star shower head changeover, and nothing else.

2. Electrical: essentially nothing

   Victoria does not allow homeowners to do their own electrical work. That includes exhaust fans, downlights, power points, hardwired heated towel rails and moving a switch. Replacing a light globe is about the limit. This is enforced, and damage caused by unlicensed electrical work is a common exclusion in home insurance policies.

3. Waterproofing: legal here, but it has to comply

   Victoria does not require a specific waterproofing licence the way New South Wales and Queensland do — both restrict the work by contract value rather than banning homeowners outright. It still has to comply with Australian Standard AS 3740. Be realistic about this one: waterproofing failure is the most expensive thing that goes wrong in a bathroom, it is invisible until it isn't, and a certificate from a registered building practitioner — Domestic Builder (Limited), waterproofing — is what a future buyer's building inspector will ask for. There is no separate "waterproofing licence" in Victoria, whatever a quote might call it.

4. Tiling, painting, joinery: yours to do

   Tiling, grouting, siliconing, painting, patching, fitting doors and handles, and installing flat-pack cabinetry are work you may do on your own home without being registered — this is where DIY genuinely saves money. Note the distinction though: Victoria does have registration classes covering tiling, painting, waterproofing and joinery, and anyone doing this for someone else under a contract over $10,000 has to be registered.

5. Building permits and the $10,000 line

   Domestic building work over $10,000 must be carried out by a registered building practitioner. A like-for-like bathroom refresh usually needs no building permit, but moving structural walls, altering windows or changing drainage often does. Check with your council before, not after.

6. What it means for insurance

   This is the part people underestimate. If unlicensed plumbing or electrical work causes damage, insurers can and do decline the claim — and uncertified alterations surface again when you sell.

The thing almost every online list gets wrong

Search “plumbing you can do yourself Australia” and you will find the same tidy list everywhere: replace a tap washer, swap a showerhead, change a cistern washer, replace a water filter cartridge, clear a blockage with a plunger, connect washing machine hoses.

That list is Western Australia's. Building and Energy WA published it as a deliberate reform in 2024, partly to take pressure off a plumber shortage. It is a real, written, official list — for people in Perth.

Victoria does have a written exemption, but it is far narrower, and it lives in the legislation rather than on a friendly web page. Section 221D of the Building Act 1993 makes unlicensed plumbing work an offence, then carves out a person repairing a tap in a dwelling they own and occupy, plus whatever the Plumbing Regulations prescribe. What the regulations prescribe is short: replacing or repairing tap washers and other minor tap repairs, and changing over a 3-star shower head, both in a dwelling.

Two things follow. Most of the WA list — cistern valves, filter cartridges, washing machine hoses — is not in Victoria's exemption. And the exemption expressly does not extend to a thermostatic mixing valve, a tempering valve or a backflow prevention device — even though a tempering valve on a hot water line is the fitting a homeowner is most likely to mistake for an ordinary tap, and getting it wrong is a scald risk as well as an offence.

The line that actually matters: maintenance vs installation

Nobody is going to prosecute you for changing a worn washer in your own kitchen tap. What changes the picture is whether you are maintaining an existing fitting or installing, moving or altering something.

Generally treated as homeowner maintenance:

• Replacing a worn washer or O-ring in an existing tap — but not a thermostatic mixing valve, tempering valve or backflow prevention device, which the exemption expressly excludes
• Changing over to a 3-star WELS-rated shower head
• Replacing a toilet seat
• Clearing a blockage with a plunger
• Connecting or replacing washing machine hoses
• Cleaning external grates and traps
• Turning the water on and off at the meter

Licensed plumbing work, without argument:

• Installing or replacing a tap body or mixer
• Moving any fixture — shower, toilet, vanity, bath
• Cutting into, extending or capping any pipe
• Installing a toilet suite
• Anything touching the sewer, the drinking water supply or stormwater
• Every single piece of gas work, no matter how small
• Hot water units, tempering valves, thermostatic mixers

The $750 rule most homeowners have never heard of

If plumbing work is worth more than $750 — counting materials, appliances, labour and GST together — the licensed plumber who did it must give you a compliance certificate. Certain work needs one regardless of value, including gas appliances, gas piping, and below-ground sanitary drains.

Two reasons to care. First, that certificate is your evidence the work was done properly, and it is what an insurer or a conveyancer will ask for. Second, it is a useful test when you are unsure whether a job is really DIY: if the finished job would have needed a compliance certificate had a plumber done it, it was never yours to do.

Keep every certificate you are given. They cost nothing to file and are genuinely difficult to reconstruct years later.

Electrical: essentially nothing

Victoria does not allow homeowners to do their own electrical work. Not the exhaust fan, not the downlights, not a new power point, not a hardwired heated towel rail, not moving a light switch two hundred millimetres. Changing a light globe is roughly where the line sits.

This catches people out most often during a bathroom or kitchen renovation, because so much of what people think of as “installing” is electrical: the fan, the heat lamps, the mirror with a light in it, the under-cabinet strip. All of it is licensed work, and all of it should come with an electrical Certificate of Electrical Safety.

Waterproofing: legal to DIY, and still a bad idea

Waterproofing a wet area is not licensed plumbing work in Victoria, so a homeowner can legally do it. It still has to comply with AS 3740, the Australian Standard for waterproofing domestic wet areas — which covers substrate preparation, membrane thickness, how far up the walls it goes, and how the junctions and penetrations are treated.

We would still tell you not to. Not because it is difficult on the day, but because it is the one part of a bathroom that is completely invisible once tiles are on, fails silently, and takes one to three years to show itself — by which time the fix is the whole room again, plus whatever the water found on its way through. It is the single highest-consequence, lowest-visibility component in the build.

Where the building-work thresholds sit

Separate from the trade licensing, Victoria has dollar thresholds that decide what paperwork a job needs:

• Over $10,000 — the builder must have a written major domestic building contract with you.
• Over $20,000 — if you are doing the work yourself on your own land you need an owner-builder Certificate of Consent from the Building and Plumbing Commission before a building permit can issue.

Most complete bathroom renovations clear the first. If someone quotes you $18,000 on a text message and never mentions a contract, that is not a paperwork shortcut in your favour — it is the protection you would rely on if the job went wrong quietly disappearing.

What it costs to get someone in instead

The gap between DIY and licensed is often smaller than people expect for small jobs. A washer replacement or a like-for-like tap swap is usually a minimum-call-out job for a plumber, and most will quote it over the phone. Weigh that against the downside: a failed DIY connection behind a wall cavity does not stay a plumbing problem for long — it becomes a plaster, flooring and cabinetry problem.

The rule we use ourselves: if getting it wrong only wastes your Saturday, do it. If getting it wrong releases water into a place you cannot see, do not.

Common mistakes

• Assuming the rules are the same as NSW or Queensland — they are not
• Treating a tap swap as maintenance when it is an installation
• Doing your own waterproofing without reading AS 3740
• Not keeping certificates for work that was done properly

Questions people ask

Can I really not replace my own tap?

Replacing the washer inside an existing tap is maintenance and is not usually treated as licensed work. Replacing the tap itself — undoing the body from the water supply and fitting a new one — is installation, and that is licensed plumbing work in Victoria.

Who regulates this now — the VBA or the BPC?

Both names refer to the same body. The Victorian Building Authority now trades as the Building and Plumbing Commission. Older articles, forum posts and even some trade websites still say VBA, which is one reason so much of the advice online is out of date.

What happens if the previous owner did unlicensed work?

It becomes your problem, which is why it is worth asking for compliance certificates during a purchase. Uncertified plumbing tends to surface either when something fails or when you sell and a buyer's inspection finds it.

Does my home insurance care?

Policies vary, but damage caused by unlicensed work is a common exclusion. It is not the fine that usually hurts people — it is a declined claim on a ceiling, a floor and a kitchen underneath a bathroom.

Is waterproofing really allowed to be DIY here?

Yes, it is legal for a homeowner in Victoria, unlike some other states. It must still comply with AS 3740. Legal and advisable are different questions, and this is the clearest example of the two coming apart.

This guide is general information, not advice for your particular house. Rules change — check the current position with the Building and Plumbing Commission, Energy Safe Victoria and WorkSafe Victoria before you rely on it. Plumbing, gas and electrical work must be done by a licensed practitioner. If your home was built or last renovated before 1990, assume asbestos until it is ruled out — see what a strip-out finds.