What is Restricted Building Work?
Restricted building work includes the design and construction of a house or small-medium sized apartments and covers:
- Primary structure (e.g., foundations and framing) – to ensure the building can withstand vertical and horizontal loads.
- External envelope (e.g., roofing and cladding) – to ensure the building is weathertight.
- Design of fire safety systems (e.g., sprinklers, fire alarms) – to ensure people are adequately protected from the dangers of smoke and fire (for small to medium-sized apartment buildings only).
It includes building work and building inspection work carried out or supervised for the following licensing classes:
- Bricklaying or block-laying work
- Carpentry work
- External plastering work
- Foundations work
- Roofing work.
Only Licensed Building Practitioners (LBP) are allowed to carry out or supervise ‘restricted building work’ unless the builder has an owner-builder exemption). Therefore, a residential building consent application must include the names of LBP’s carrying out or supervising both design and construction that is restricted building work.
Major amendments to the plans that involve Restricted Building Work
If you want to make major amendments (changes) to an issued building consent after it has been granted, where the changes will involve restricted building work, those changes will need to be
- designed by a design Licensed Building Practitioner and a certificate of design work (COW) provided for the amendments
- construction must be done or supervised by trade Licensed Building Practitioners and a record of work (ROW) provided to cover the work.
Before starting a project make sure that the design and trade’s people you engage are licensed.
For more information about Restricted Building Work
- Licensed Building Practitioners
- Guidance for homeowners on the MBIE website
- Guidance for the industry: license categories, and guidance documents.
- Owner-Builder Exemptions and Restricted Building Work.
- Building Act 2004
- Section 7 interpretation
- Section 14C Responsibilities of Owner-Builder (re: restricted building work)
- Section 45(1)(e) how to apply for a BC, in the case of a BC application with RBW
- Section 84 – 88 Restricted building work must be carried out or supervised by LBPs
- Section 90A – 90D RBW carried out by owner-builders
- Section 92 (2A) Application for CCC: owner to provide ROWs
- Schedule 1 – Exempted building work
- Building (Definition of Restricted Building Work) Order 2011
- Licensed building practitioners PRACTICE NOTE: Supervision
- Building (Designation of Building Work Licensing Classes) Order 2010
- Standards New Zealand
- A carpenter can construct foundations as per NZS 3604:2011
- In regard to AS1170 – it is still RBW
Last updated 2018-09-11
