Who may do each part of the work?

Who works on the pool while it is empty

While the pool is empty, the work on it is done by somebody, and five of the state pages cited here say who that somebody may be. The answer is not one rule but a scope, with the work inside it and the work outside it, and the two edges matter as much as the middle.

Resurfacing is the clearest test of the licence rules, because New South Wales names it outright.

New South Wales: the pool trades page names resurfacing

In NSW, you must have a licence or certificate to do swimming pool repairs and servicing work, and you need the required qualifications and experience before you apply. The page classifies the work rather than leaving it to the reader: swimming pool repairs and servicing work is trade work, and a contractor licence is needed for residential building or trade work that is valued at more than $5,000 in labour and materials, including GST.

What is inside the scope is written as a list, and resurfacing is in it. Swimming pool repairs and servicing means work to fix or maintain parts of an existing swimming pool, and the page includes work on internally reticulated pool plumbing that is not connected to a potable water source, solar thermal heating systems that are not hard-wired, excluding any solar photovoltaic systems, and installing equipment including filters and skimmers. Then the line that answers the question: it also includes non-structural additions, changes and repairs; painting and surfacing, which the page reads as rendering or applying surface coatings, of a swimming pool; and acid washing and pool cleaning.

What is outside the scope is just as specific: swimming pool repairs and servicing does not include any work related to paving, decking, landscaping or fencing for a pool or spa. So in NSW a resurfaced pool sits inside the pool repairs and servicing scope while the deck beside it sits outside that scope, and the penalty for doing unlicensed work is stated on the same page: a fine of $22,000 as an individual or $110,000 as a company under the Home Building Act 1989.

The pool itself has a definition on that page, and it decides what the scope can reach: a swimming pool is defined under the Swimming Pools Act 1992 as an excavation, structure or vessel that can be filled with water to a depth more than 300 millimetres and that is only or mainly used, or designed, manufactured or adapted to be only or mainly used, for swimming, wading, paddling or any other human aquatic activity, including a spa pool but not a spa bath or anything in a bathroom.

Victoria: the pool builder’s class, and the class next door

Victoria separates the work into classes of domestic building work, and each class has its own list. The class limited to pools and spas covers building them for homes, along with the structural landscaping that belongs to that work, and appropriate safety barriers are inside the class as well.

The same class leaves several things out: retaining walls, shade structures, the keeping of a pool or spa maintained and generally repaired, and water chemistry. Those last two are the ones a reader meets first: in Victoria the trade that builds the pool is not the class that maintains it or doses it, and the state draws that edge in the same document as the pool class itself.

The class next door matches it. Structural landscaping takes in gates and fencing of any material, with pool and spa safety barriers excluded from that class, and it takes in retaining walls in any material that are not part of a building. Put beside the pool class, the two lists meet exactly at the safety barrier: the barrier belongs to the pool builder’s class, and the fence around the rest of the garden belongs to the landscape one.

Queensland: the owner’s own threshold

Queensland publishes a threshold for the owner who intends to do the work rather than hire for it. On the QBCC’s page about fixing non-conformities, the rule is explicit: if you plan to do work that you estimate will cost more than $11,000, including labour and materials, you must get a QBCC Owner-builder permit before you do the work.

The QBCC also names who inspects and certifies the finished barrier, which is a different licence from the one that does the work: its page on buying, selling or leasing a property with a pool says pool safety certificates are issued by pool safety inspectors, and its pool safety laws page recommends engaging a licensed pool safety inspector to inspect the pool and confirm it is compliant.

Tasmania and the ACT: a builder and a building surveyor

Tasmania writes the barrier as a two-trade job: a pool safety barrier there has to be put in by a licensed builder, with a licensed building surveyor overseeing the work. One exemption sits beside it, and it is about the pool rather than the barrier: the Tasmanian Building Act 2016 lets some pools and spas go in without a building permit and without a building surveyor’s oversight, provided a compliant pool safety barrier is in place.

In the ACT, the installation or construction of a pool may need to be undertaken by a licensed builder and signed off by a licensed building surveyor, a certifier. The same page names who may issue a compliance certificate under the reforms: compliance certificates need to be obtained from an authorised person, and licensed building surveyors are automatically deemed to be an authorised person for this purpose.

Where these scopes stop

The scopes above are the ones published on the state pages cited here: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT. For a state or territory not on that list, nothing is stated, rather than lending it a neighbour’s rule. Where a reader’s state is on the list, the licence to check is the one its own page names, and the check itself is worth doing before the water goes down: a scope decides who may resurface, who may rebuild the barrier, and who may only fence the garden.

The fittings a national ban now covers are in the skimmer box guide, and what the finished barrier must answer is in the fence inspection guide.