Course Content
By the end of this course, you will be able to set out a wet area so the water reaches the drain: the fall between 1:80 and 1:50, the set-down or the hob or the waterstop, the flanged waste at the low point and every penetration planned before the walls are sheeted. Substrates are read the way a bonded membrane will experience them over ten years, so clean, sound, primed and dry become conditions you measure and photograph, and an unfit floor becomes a short written refusal rather than your problem. The junctions get the numbers the Housing Provisions give them, with bond breakers matched to the class of the membrane, 1800, 50, 25 and 5 millimetres measured with a tape, the membrane terminated into the flange, and coats and cure worked to the data sheet and the room rather than the clock. A flood test after full cure and before the tiler then proves the work while a fault is still a local repair. Handover in writing and a folder of dated photographs, readings and batch numbers leave you in a defensible position for the years a statutory warranty runs.
Learning Outcomes
This ensures that CPD efforts align with professional regulatory requirements.
This CPD provides general guidance on professional responsibilities and documentation practices. It does not constitute legal advice or replace project-specific contractual or statutory obligations.
Compliance and Accreditation
| Framework/Body | Relevant Sections | Focus Areas |
| AS 3740:2021 Waterproofing of domestic wet areas (Standards Australia) | The edition called up by NCC 2022 and NCC 2025 (NCC 2025 referenced documents table). Scope and definitions (shower area, enclosed and unenclosed, waterstop, bond breaker, membrane classes); extent of waterproofing by area and floor substrate; substrate preparation; membrane installation at junctions, penetrations, hobs, waterstops and drainage flanges; guidance on flood testing (described in the script without a clause number) | Primary technical framework. The setout, substrate, junction, height, termination and flood test rules the four modules teach |
| ABCB Housing Provisions Standard 2025, Part 10.2 Wet area waterproofing (Deemed-to-Satisfy for Class 1 and 10 via NCC Volume Two H4D2 and H4D3) | 10.2.1 to 10.2.6 extent of waterproofing (shower walls 1800 mm, area outside the shower, baths and spas, laundries and WCs); 10.2.8 to 10.2.10 waterproof and water resistant materials (AS/NZS 4858 membranes; fibre cement to AS/NZS 2908.2; water resistant plasterboard); 10.2.12 falls 1:80 to 1:50; 10.2.14 shower area requirements; 10.2.15 step-down 25 mm; 10.2.16 hob construction (no timber); 10.2.17 level threshold waterstop 5 mm; 10.2.18 unenclosed shower waterstop 1500 mm; 10.2.19 and 10.2.20 preformed bases and baths (upturn lip, rebate); 10.2.22 substrate preparation; 10.2.23 penetrations; 10.2.24 flashings and junctions (40 mm leg, door waterstop, membrane 25 mm up the jamb); 10.2.25 membrane 1800 mm above finished tile; 10.2.26 cut edges of water resistant plasterboard; 10.2.27 bond breakers by membrane class; 10.2.28 hob termination 50 mm onto the floor, 5 mm under a framed screen; 10.2.29 drainage flange termination and waste height | Every dimension quoted in Modules 1 and 3 is read from these clauses; verified on the NCC 2025 text on 17 September 2026 |
| National Construction Code 2025 (edition by jurisdiction; NCC 2022 wet area provisions are the same) | Volume Two H4P1, H4D2 and H4D3 with the note on livable housing (hobs and step-downs only in bathrooms not subject to the ABCB Standard for Livable Housing Design); Volume One F2P1, F2D2 and Specification 26 for Class 2 to 9 wet areas, calling up AS 3740; adoption position as at 17 September 2026 (VIC, WA, ACT on NCC 2025; NSW, QLD, TAS and the SA building code on NCC 2022 until 1 May 2027; NT not adopting) | Why the falls, heights and waterstops carry the force of the Code; the livable housing bathroom rule in Module 1; the jurisdiction framing in the regulatory note |
| ABCB Standard for Livable Housing Design (referenced by NCC 2022 and NCC 2025 in adopting jurisdictions) | Hobless, step-free shower in the required bathroom of a Class 1a dwelling; applies in QLD, VIC, ACT, SA, TAS and NT and not in NSW or WA as at the date of writing | The level threshold detail as the default in one bathroom per new house (slides 9 and 10) |
| AS/NZS 4858:2004 Wet area membranes (Standards Australia) | Membrane material performance; extensibility classes I, II and III that determine the bond breaker type under Housing Provisions 10.2.27; the standard against which data sheet coverage and dry film thickness are tested | Module 3 bond breaker and film build rules; the data sheet as the installer’s warranty condition |
| State trade licensing (NSW Fair Trading and Building Commission NSW waterproofing licence; QBCC Waterproofing licence class; VBA domestic building registration; WA, SA, TAS, ACT and NT builder registration regimes) | Waterproofing as a licensed trade in its own right in NSW and QLD; regulated through builder registration and domestic building contracts elsewhere; the licensee’s certificate or compliance statement; licence class and conditions | Module 4 slide 33: what the licensee may sign for; the certificate as part of the record. Qualified by state in the script, never presented as national |
| Statutory warranties and duty of care (NSW Home Building Act 1989 statutory warranties and major defect period; NSW Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 Part 4 duty of care; QBCC Act and QBCC defect categories; equivalent domestic building legislation in other states) | Warranty periods running for years after completion; waterproofing failures treated as major or structural defects in several states; the statutory duty of care extending to subcontractors in NSW | The reason the record matters (slides 33, 34 and 38); stated as general education, not legal or insurance advice, with the reader directed to their own lawyer and broker |
| NSCA 2021 (Architects, secondary website audience) | PC12, PC37, PC45, PC55, PC56 | PC12: how the NCC and AS 3740 apply to wet area construction. PC37: documentation of falls, thresholds, waterstops and the livable bathroom. PC45: selecting membranes and substrates on performance evidence. PC55 and PC56: document control and approving substitutions and late penetrations during construction |
This session is designed for
Licensed Waterproofers and Wet Area Applicators
Wall and Floor Tilers
Licensed Builders and Site Supervisors
Plumbers and Drainers
Building Surveyors and Certifiers
What’s Included
This course examines the parts of a wet area waterproofing job that decide whether it leaks and who is blamed when it does: the waste, the penetrations, the wall to floor corner, the doorway and the fall, rather than the open field of the membrane. Falls, set-downs, hobs, waterstops, drainage flanges, bond breakers and the four termination heights are taken from Part 10.2 of the ABCB Housing Provisions Standard, which carries AS 3740:2021 into the Code, together with the livable housing rule that makes one bathroom in most new houses hobless. Substrate preparation, film build, recoat and cure are treated as data sheet conditions the installer measures and records, with the written refusal as the document that turns an unfit floor into the builder’s hold point. The flood test, the handover and the job folder are set out as the evidence that separates the waterproofer’s work from what the tiler, the plumber and the screen installer do afterwards. Two case studies, a reused waste with no flange and a wet screed refused in one email, show what that evidence is worth eighteen months on.
Why Take This CPD Session?
Learn to read a screed, a waste and a shower threshold against the Housing Provisions figures in the first ten minutes on site, and put the failures in writing before the lid comes off the tin.
Understand why the corner, the hob, the doorway and the flange fail before the open floor does, and detail each to the bond breaker class, height and termination the Code specifies.
Build the flood test, handover and record habits that keep your name out of a claim, supported by two case studies of a leak that started at the waste and an email that held two years later.
Professional development is an investment in career growth and regulatory compliance. Take the next step today.
