E56. When do you need a permit for a shed or carport?
INTRO
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Hello and welcome to the Building Design Primetime podcast, focused on providing valuable information for anyone looking to undertake a new build or extension project. We'll share our tips, tricks and stories from a building designers perspective.
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Amelia: Hello and welcome to the Building Design, Prime Time podcast. I'm your host Amelia and once again we're joined by Frank Geskus.
Frank: How are you Amelia?
Amelia: Oh look, it's Friday. I'm pretty happy.
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Frank: Yes, you seem overly happy on a Friday, don't you?
Amelia: I'm sure everyone else is the same.
Frank: True, end of the week, it's always good looking forward to the weekend.
Amelia: Exactly. We're going to talk about sheds today, aren't we?
Frank: Oh, I love sheds. Who doesn't love a shed?
Amelia: Yeah, exactly.
Frank: It's a great Australian dream.
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Amelia: You've got garden sheds.
Frank: No, no, no.
Amelia: Oh, oh, no?
Frank: No, man caves.
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Amelia: Oh, righto.
Frank: You've got to put your pride and joy somewhere.
Amelia: Are you talking about your cars?
Frank: Yeah, maybe.
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Amelia: Or your bars?
Frank: No. Just put the cars in there, or some people have got bikes, one guy's got trucks.
Amelia: Caravans.
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Frank: Caravans, yeah, all that. Just be it a workshop, a place to hang out, a place to put the eight ball table and a wood fire.
Amelia: Exactly, exactly. We all need a place for that.
Frank: Yes, yes. And some would call it a doghouse.
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When you've been a bad boy and the wife kicks you out, you've got somewhere to go.
Amelia: You sound like you've got a little bit of experience with that.
Frank: Definitely not.
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No, no, no, no.
Amelia: You have a very patient wife then.
Frank: I've got a very patient wife.
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Or should I say I'm a patient husband?
Amelia: Well, it depends which way you want to look at it.
Frank: Yeah, there's always two points of view on this.
Amelia: There's two sides. Yeah, exactly.
Frank: Yeah, sheds, yes. It's a thing that you look everywhere in all these houses and there's caravan sheds everywhere.
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And I'm talking about tin sheds, you know, Colorbond clad. We call it caravan, that's the coding, but they're just metal framed, metal clad sheds. Bang for your buck.
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Dollar wise, they are fantastic. They're relatively easy to put up and relatively easy to get approvals for.
Amelia: Well, so you do need approval for them?
Frank: Well, it depends.
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In Tasmania, we have a couple of rules that I don't know how the other states are, but in Tasmania, if you buy a kit shed, there's plenty of manufacturers out there that will supply you with a kit shed. And I call them kits because everything's prefabricated, bolts together, screw the sheeting on, put the gutters on, attach the downpipes to the stormwater system, and happy days. Nice and easy.
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Yeah, until you try and put one up yourself, get someone who's experienced at putting it up, it's a lot easier. So in Tasmania, we have different, I'll go back one step. We have the building code we talk about, the National Construction Code.
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Every state's got their own Building Act regulations, which has the underlying things when you need to have permits and what you're allowed to do, not to do. In Tasmania, we have that and it's called the Building Act, which is really exciting. But they also have a number of other underlying documents that tells you what needs a permit and what doesn't need a permit.
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So the document we have in Tasmania is called the Director's Determination Categories of Building and Demolition.
Amelia: That sounds really riveting read, what do you reckon?
Frank: Yeah, It will put you to sleep pretty quick, especially if you're not familiar with the terms.
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And yeah, it's like a 75-page document, lots of tables and stuff in there, but we have to use this on a regular basis to determine what type of permit you need.
Amelia: And so this is only relevant to Tasmania, this document?
Frank: Yeah, exactly. So every state's got their own way of doing things.
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But to be fair, the Tasmanian government did some of this and obviously put it all together. And generally it's not bad. Some of it's really dumb.
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That's stuff that doesn't fit within there. You know, your 1% is that doesn't fit within these. And we've got to work with the building surveyors to get clarity on some of these too.
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But we're going to talk about sheds. We're going to keep it really easy. So there are four categories in Tasmania, categories of work.
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And category one is called low-risk building work, work that can be done by the owner, licensed builder, or competent person. I don't actually know how that's determined, but anyway. Category two, low-risk building work.
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This work can be done by a licensed builder and in some cases an indicator of a competent person, but you've got to provide evidence. Category three, notifiable building works. This is works that can only be done where a building surveyor is engaged.
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Remember the building surveyors are guys that stamp it, say, yep, it complies. Or if there's things missing, you need to address these items off your drawings and your documents and reports. They carry out their assessment, notify the relevant permit authority, which is the council, and they only have to notify them and they can start building.
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Amelia: Okay.
Frank: Now remember, this is not plumbing. Plumbing's completely different.
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It's got its own set of rules. So then category four is permit building work where the works require a permit issued by the relevant council permit authority. So it has to go through the council permit system after the building surveyor's done their component.
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Amelia: Okay.
Frank: Okay, so we've got that. So you can do a shed under category two, which means you don't have to get a building permit.
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Amelia: Oh, that's good.
Frank: Of course it is. So you just grab someone to go pour a slab based off the drawings that the shed manufacturer provides.
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And you get someone to put up the shed, the frame, the steel, and hook up the gutters. And then you need a plumber to hook up the downpipes. And you still need a plumbing permit though.
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Amelia: That makes sense. I mean, if you need a plumber, you're gonna need a plumbing permit.
Frank: But it's gotta be connected and done properly.
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Okay. But to be fair, it's two pieces of pipe connecting into a stormwater pipe. It's not hard, but then there’s rules.
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And they've chosen that you need a plumber to do that.
Amelia: So is this dependent on size of the shed?
Frank: Yeah, it is. So under the director's determination, so the book that we're using, and in the area it says no permit required.
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So if you want a shared garage or a carport, or similar, the maximum size is 36 square metres. So that's six by six. So you can fit two cars in there quite easily.
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So it's not a small shed.
Amelia: It's basically a garage.
Frank: really. It is.
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It can be a carport. And a maximum ridge height is 4.5. Maximum wall height, 3.6. And the maximum span, like the opening, how far will the wall is nine metres. Most people go six by six because it's perfect for putting two normal sized cars in.
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Amelia: Yeah, it makes sense.
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Frank: Yeah. So there are other limitations to that. And this is where no one's checking if someone wants to build a shed backyard, who's checked if you're actually allowed to. Now, I just said it needs no permit, right?
Amelia: Yes.
Frank: But there's other things that have to be considered.
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Amelia: What if there's an easement running through?
Frank: Yes, we've spoken about easements.
Amelia: Yes.
Frank: And that means it could be a pipe through there, those types of things.
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So yeah, you need to check your title, but it may not be in titles. Tasmania, we've got some of the oldest infrastructure in Australia, and you could have a pipe there that no one even knows about. Oh, that could be a problem.
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And guess what? You're still not allowed to build over it.
Amelia: Oh dear. So that has to be checked.
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Frank: You've got to find it. Easements, obviously, you look at easement, there's a pipe, there's ways of finding it online, or go to your local council or your friendly members at TasWater can certainly assist you. But all this stuff, finding the infrastructure is online.
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So what happens if you're building too close to someone else's building?
Amelia: Yeah, I guess, wouldn't there be a minimum setback that you're allowed to build from?
Frank: Yeah, pretty much so. There's limitation of what they're allowed to do. So the standard limitations, like, for arguments sake, say if you're on a steep site, still says you don't need a permit, right?
Amelia: But what if you need a retaining wall?
Frank: Thank you, that's exactly right.
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What if you've got to cut in? So under the limitations, there's a whole document that says limitations like how much you can cut into the site. So if you're with 1.5 metres of the boundary, you can't cut any more than half a metre. So if you're more than 1.5, you can go 1.2 metres, okay? So that's by a competent person.
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If it's a licensed builder, it's the only difference is if you're more than 1.5 metres away, your retaining wall or fill, sorry, it's the other way too, putting dirt in place can be 1.8. Okay. That's a fairly decent height.
Amelia: Yeah, that is decent.
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Frank: So you can't do building or demolition work in a hazardous area. So bushfire, so we've talked about bushfire. So if your shed is within two metres of your house, and you're within six metres of your house, and you're in a bushfire prone zone, so it might be four metres away, you actually have to have bushfire assessment to see if it's going to be safe.
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But if you don't know that you need one, so this is the trick, you don't know.
Amelia: If you don't need a permit, then what's gonna trigger you knowing these things?
Frank: Yeah. What happens if it's landslip? You're building on landslip.
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Amelia: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can't, most of the time, you can look that up though.
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Frank: You can, but then what do you do? To the average punter, you know, well, what do I do now?
Amelia: Well, would you have to get a landslip assessment?
Frank: Yeah, but it depends on what level you need. So there's all these things. So I'll continue here.
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Coastal inundation, where the sea level rise.
Amelia: And we talked about this in our previous podcast. Coastal erosion.
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Frank: Yes. Yes. Riverine inundation.
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What that actually means is flood prone areas.
Amelia: Yeah, I could see that being a bit of a problem.
Frank: Yeah, yeah.
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And funny enough, flood prone areas, not what you think sometimes. So when you have big storms, water will naturally go the easiest path, right? And that can be down the street and then through your property.
Amelia: Oh, it could be.
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Frank: Yeah, we just had one. We were looking to do an extension for some water. We had a look at the overlays and there they had the flood prone area.
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Really? Had a look. All the water naturally goes down this driveway, down to a cul-de-sac and then through this person's property.
Amelia: Oh, wow.
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Frank: Yeah, that's the modelling of it. So yeah, we have to work our way through to try and deal with that. And then separation from other buildings.
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If you're doing a shed, stay 900 millimetres away from the boundary. That's your normal National Construction Code setback for houses and sheds. So you keep it 900 millimetres away and you don't have any problems.
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Now, away from the boundary, I should say, sorry. Should have been clear on that. Or the neighbour's house.
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The house of the neighbour might be closer than that. You've got to still stay 900 millimetres away. Oh, this is where it gets tricky.
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If the shed is put between a couple of houses, it comes all these different distances under the National Construction Code. Most people just put them in the backyard though.
Amelia: Yeah, most people.
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Frank: That's where carports get interesting. Because carports, they put them by the side of the house. How close is it to the boundary and to the neighbouring property?
Amelia: Yeah, that's a really good point.
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And do you need a permit for those?
Frank: Yes, you do. Very much so.
Amelia: Really?
Frank: When you start trying to get within 900 mil, yes, 900 mil of the boundary, you're going to need to go for a planning permit.
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Amelia: Even if it's just a carport?
Frank: Yes, you've got to go through the rules. Now, good thing, planning, our favourite topic.
Amelia: Yes, we've talked about this before.
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Frank: We had Mick here before and that was really intense and going through the philosophy and stuff of planning. But bottom line is, how do you know if your shed is going to be placed? And there's an overlay.
Amelia: Yes.
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Frank: Because you might have a flora and fauna protection overlay that means looking after special species of plants or the vulnerable, what was that, vulnerable? Oh, the cute furry animal.
Amelia: You always call it that.
Frank: And to be fair, Tassie, we've got cute furry animals everywhere.
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And if there's a habitat, you can't just go build in this habitat. And that habitat could be partly on your land.
Amelia: Yeah.
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Frank: How do you know?
Amelia: Exactly.
Frank: it needs to be checked out. So all these things make it really interesting.
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Yes, you can build a shed without a permit, but you might get tripped up over all these things we've just spoken about. And to be fair, a lot of people just put up sheds without even checking it. Yep, I could put a shed up, bang, put it up.
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And it's up, and they never got a plumbing permit, they've got it up, and comes a problem when they go to sell.
Amelia: Yes.
Frank: If someone picks it up.
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Same with your car, build it near a gas line, electrical easement, all these types of things. What? Oh, here's another good one. How about if you're a rural block, can we talk about septics? All your waste goes into a septic tank or a AWTS or a package treatment plant.
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And that is then dispersed to trenches under the ground or irrigation drippers under the ground. You can't build within three metres of that with your shed.
Amelia: Really?
Frank: Yep.
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Amelia: Interesting.
Frank: Yeah, so there's all these little tricks, isn't it?
Amelia: And yeah, most people, like I didn't know that, most people are probably not gonna know that.
Frank: So be careful where you put your shed or where you wanna put your shed.
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Amelia: Definitely.
Frank: So the funny thing is the government's allowed this, and I think, you know, to a point I think it's a good idea, but I'm a bit puzzled why there hasn't been a system where, yes, I've proved it doesn't need bushfire. It's not landslip.
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It doesn't have a planning overlay. I'm not this close to the boundary. I am digging this much out.
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And you give that to the council as evidence.
Amelia: Why couldn't there be some sort of checklist or something that's quickly sort of tick and flick that you receive when you wanna do that kind of work?
Frank: Exactly. So potentially you've got these sheds out there that you really need to check before you buy a property with a shed.
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Amelia: And would a conveyancer pick up on those sort of things, do you reckon?
Frank: No, it's not their job. To be fair, that's not their job to look at building plans and see if they've built over something. This has came back to buyer beware.
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Yeah, we were talking about this a while ago that the conveyancer does their job and does it very well, all the legal aspects of it. And they leave to you to check everything. You then need to go to council to see what's been built, what's got permits.
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Now, here's the trick. Shed's there and they'll say, oh, shed doesn't need a permit. But what if it was built over a pipe?
Amelia: Yeah, or what if it was really, really old?
Frank: Yeah, well, oh, great question because we've had a few of those too.
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Amelia: Yeah, because sometimes it wouldn't even show up, I imagine, on some things.
Frank: Oh, it may not show up on all the permits, but it comes up on the aerial satellite photographs.
Amelia: Yes.
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Frank: They see all.
Amelia: They do, you can't hide.
Frank: You cannot hide.
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But now we've come across really old sheds that never had permits because they probably didn't need permits back then.
Amelia: No, probably not.
Frank: So there's a bit of negotiation with that.
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But if we stick with the Colorbond sheds, it's very hard to check that. Someone can do it, like we can do an independent check. It's not hard at all, but what do you do when you find it? As soon as you buy it, it's your problem.
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Amelia: Yes.
Frank: You inherit the problem. Doesn't matter what problem's on site, what's wrong on site, you inherit.
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There's no fallback. So again, we keep talking about research and whatnot, but really there's not a lot of mechanisms to deal with that. Now, if you do build over a pipeline and if our friendly council or TasWater need to go through there and replace it or do work on it, and you don't have permission to be over it, guess what?
Amelia: They're just gonna rip all the way through it to get to it.
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Frank: To a point, they’re actually a lot nicer than that. I've seen Averys built over manholes and all sorts of stuff and people get very upset and they say, well, you've got to move it. We've got to get access.
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By the way, don't build or bury a manhole in your backyard. It's actually illegal because they need to have access. I call it a manhole.
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I should call it an inspection opening.
Amelia: Yes.
Frank: That's a bit more of the newer terms for it.
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So there's big concrete lids that might be sitting out the back. Don't bury them. Don't build a shed over it.
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Don't put a playset over it. Don't put an Avery over it. Don't even put your block pool over it because they need access to these to go to the pipes.
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They have to go fix something.
Amelia: Exactly.
Frank: And they have the right to go onto your site to access these.
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So these are just little things that you've got to be aware of when you're wanting to put a shed, a carport or similar structure prefabricated that you can put up. So what it means is you can put it up yourself if you're competent enough.
Amelia: Wow.
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Frank: Well, there's plenty of guys that can do that and girls that can actually do that. Without a doubt.
Amelia: I've put up a shed before.
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Frank: Yeah, exactly.
Amelia: It was only three by three.
Frank: And they don't need a permit either.
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Amelia: No they don't.
Frank: So there's lots of stuff you can do.
Amelia: That's lucky because I didn't check.
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Frank: But guess what? You still can't put it over a manhole. Can't put it over a pipe.
Amelia: Yes, you still have to abide by those.
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Even over the easements. You'd just be prepared to move it if you have to. They don't move very well.
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Good opportunity to do some so you don't have to pay extra fees. But also make sure you do your research so you don't put it in the wrong spot.
Amelia: And if you have questions, I guess, give an expert a call.
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I mean, there's plenty of shed companies, building designers. They're all pretty good.
Frank: There's one shed company in Tas that has their own building designer that are aware of and I'm sure he checks all these things out.
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So that's where some guys just sell a shed. That's all they give you and tell you to go see a designer, building designer, to go sort the rest of it out. Or they just sell you something to say, hey, here you go. Thanks.
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Amelia: I guess the other thing to check too, do you have to check that, I guess, the shed company is, is it licensed or is able to sell the sheds that, you know what I'm trying to say?
Frank: Not selling you a dodgy piece of rubbish that doesn't have certified engineering.
Amelia: For Australia?
Frank: Well, for each state.
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Amelia: Oh, for each state, okay. Well, there you go. That's what I was trying to get at.
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Is it compliant for Tasmania?
Frank: Great question. Again, you've got a ton of those. You'll kill it.
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Amelia: Not bad for Friday.
Frank: Yeah, it's very good. So yes, everything in Tasmania has to be certified.
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So if you have a shed and you're going to go to the shed guys and they're going to sell you one, it comes with a form 55 or 35, depending on the situation. It comes with a shed and that's what you need. That's like your certificate to say, yes, it meets all the minimum requirements of the building code, the wind load codes and every other code they put on there.
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So that's very, very important. You make a very good point. And as we were talking about some dodgy brothers putting their humpies or transportable buildings on Gumtree or eBay or whatever, I'm sure there's guys that do the same with sheds.
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Amelia: Oh, I'm sure there would be.
Frank: So make sure you have that. They're a reputable business.
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Any reputable business will also recommend quality installers, concreters to do the slabs and installers for the sheds as well.
Amelia: Oh, do they project manage all of that for you too?
Frank: Some do. Yeah, there's a good mate of mine, Paul Purdon down at the One Stop Shed Shop in Hobart.
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Amelia: Oh yes.
Frank: And they do a cracking job.
Amelia: Yeah, nice.
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Frank: They take care of the whole lot. And I think it's a great model. Other shed manufacturers will recommend certain contractors and they're very good contractors.
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We deal with a number of them here in Launie and they're good operators as well. So if you're gonna choose something, if you're tight on budget for it, yep, you can organise it yourself. I would always go with the shed guys to organise it for you if possible.
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I think we need to get one of those shed companies in. I've contacted one already. I'm just in the process of sorting that out.
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It could be good because expanding a little bit further because you can also do farm sheds without a permit too, up to 200 square metres.
Amelia: Up to 200? Yep. Wow.
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Frank: Don't need a permit.
Amelia: That's a bit crazy.
Frank: As always, you know, it's the maximum ridge height, 4.5. So it's the same old stuff.
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Amelia: Yeah, yeah.
Frank: But it can only be used for storage and farm type activities. But also, they've still got to comply with all these other regs I was talking about.
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Amelia: Yeah, bushfire and all the other stuff.
Frank: Yep, it's too close to the house, all that type of stuff, your waste water. But also, what happens if there's a fibre optic cable going through the property and stuff like that?
Amelia: Yeah, that's a good point.
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Frank: So that’s usually what you find in farms are all water trunk main. So the shed guys offer a huge range of different products from farm sheds, you've got your home sheds, carports, but also houses made out of sheds, as we lovingly call them shouses.
Amelia: Yes.
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Frank: And we've done lots of them and they're great. For some people, it's perfect for what they want. But obviously, lots of sheds are used for commercial purposes as well.
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Amelia: Yeah, definitely.
Frank: So can't wait to have a chat about that.
Amelia: Yeah, that's all for another podcast.
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Frank: It is, it is. So yeah, as we always say, research.
Amelia: That's really the take home point, isn't it? Do your research.
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Frank: It's just every time we do a podcast, it's like, do your research. But don't put your shed where it shouldn't go.
Amelia: Exactly.
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Frank: Don't get caught out.
Amelia: And work within the parameters of the regulations of-
Frank: But you can download these regs, if you're really, you know, that type of person loves reading this stuff and understand some of the lingo and the wording, go for it.
Amelia: Download the Building Act.
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Frank: Oh no, don't download that, that's a whole other thing. The Building Act, Act of Parliament. Yeah, that's a special document, that one.
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And we do have to learn a lot about it. So this is actually called Director's Determination, Categories of Building and Demolition. And yeah, we use this a lot for obviously what we do.
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Amelia: All right, well, we might wrap it up there, folks. Thanks for listening to the Building Design Primetime Podcast.
Frank: Catch ya’s later.
OUTRO (22:48 - 22:51)
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