Everything worth reading, watching or paying for

Intertek Inform is an authorised reseller; Standards Australia's own store sells the same document. You almost certainly do not need to buy it for one back yard — an arborist applies it for you, and the calculator below does the arithmetic free. Note also that most WA council policies still name AS 4970-2009, so expect the older wording in council paperwork for some time yet.

This is a consultancy's marketing blog, based in Karrinyup, and it exists to sell arborist reports. The technical summary matches an independent NSW source checked alongside it, but treat the framing as advertising and confirm anything load-bearing against the standard itself or your council.

These are the work health and safety thresholds that bind anyone doing the work for fee or reward. A homeowner working on their own home also has duties under the Health (Asbestos) Regulations 1992 and must dispose of the material at a facility licensed to accept it — ask your local government environmental health officer before you touch it.

BYDA is national. In Perth the responding asset owners are typically Water Corporation, Western Power, ATCO Gas and the comms carriers, and each replies separately with its own plan set and its own conditions — so expect several emails, not one document.

The clearance tables live in the linked Residential guidelines for designers PDF rather than on the page itself, and Water Corporation states it will not advise on structural design — that is your engineer's job. Get the numbers from the current PDF before you finalise any footing near a sewer.

The specific clearance distances are in the linked Residential guidelines for designers PDF, not on the page itself. Get the number for your asset and your structure from Water Corporation rather than assuming a figure.

The page also records that from 1 July 2026 Class 10a buildings valued under $50,000 no longer need a registered building contractor in WA, which covers a lot of patios, carports and sheds. That is recent, so re-read the page rather than relying on what a tradesperson told you two years ago, and confirm the building permit position with your own council.

Designation is lot-scale and does not tell you your BAL rating — that comes from an accredited bushfire practitioner assessing vegetation, slope and separation. Treat the map as a yes/no flag on the drawing and follow it up in Phase 4.

The map is re-designated annually — the version current when this was checked came into effect on 13 December 2025, with a four-month transition for newly designated areas. Check it again at the time you lodge anything rather than relying on a screenshot from months earlier.

American, so ignore the commercial-contract framing and the pricing context. The five-part structure and the decline scripts transfer to Perth unchanged; what does not transfer is the seasonal calendar, the licensing thresholds and the assumption that a lead will happily state a budget on a first call.

UK, and the planting advice around it is irrelevant to Perth. Read only the surveying and scale-drawing section; that part is climate-independent.

Declared status is a legal category, not a horticultural one. Plenty of genuinely invasive Perth garden plants are not declared and still deserve a REMOVE verdict.

Written for grain growers diagnosing paddocks. Ignore the sampling grid advice, which assumes hectares — on a suburban block, one composite sample per planting zone is the equivalent.

Western Power covers the South West Interconnected System — Perth, the South West and the Wheatbelt. If your block is outside that, Horizon Power is the operator to contact instead.

This code was originally made under the old Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 and continues in force under transitional arrangements. A replacement Excavation work code of practice was out for public consultation in early 2026, so check the WorkSafe publications page for a newer version before relying on the detail.

Aimed at turf managers and local government parks officers rather than homeowners, so the scale is larger than your block. The nutrient logic is identical; the application equipment is not.

The free map shows only classified sites — contaminated with remediation required, contaminated with restricted use, and remediated for restricted use. Sites reported but not yet classified do not appear, so a clean map result is reassurance rather than proof.

Membership is voluntary and paid, so plenty of good Perth landscapers are not listed and listing is not an endorsement of anyone's pricing. Cross-check against Water Corporation's Waterwise specialist directory if irrigation is a large part of your job.

It covers building service providers, not landscapers as such — there is no licence for general landscaping in WA. Use it for the parts of your job that cross into registered-builder territory, and use the separate electrical, gas and plumbing registers for those trades.

Endorsement means the business has been appointed to deliver the program, not that it is the cheapest or the best designer. It also lists Victorian members, so filter by state.

Endorsement covers water efficiency, not construction quality, insurance or solvency. It tells you someone has done the training; it does not tell you they can build a retaining wall. Cross-check against the industry association listing and ask for two recent local addresses you can go and look at.

Endorsement covers water efficiency, not construction quality, licensing or solvency. You still need references, a licence check for any regulated work, and three written quotes.

IACA is headquartered in NSW and the WA member list is short. Arboriculture Australia also runs a national directory, and several Perth consultancies hold AQF5 without IACA membership — treat this as one filter, not the only one, and always ask to see the qualification.

Enter Perth's latitude as a negative number (about −31.95) and set the timezone to GMT +08.00. Western Australia does not observe daylight saving, so leave any DST adjustment off.

It is a retail garden centre, so the advice that follows the reading will lean toward products they stock — take the number and form your own view on the amendment. It is also in Guildford, which is a long drive from most of the metro area. Ring your nearest independent nursery or soil yard first and ask whether they do the same thing; several do.

A tertiary source, included as a last resort because the primary climate pages are hard to read and there is no equivalent public summary. It cites the Masselink and Pattiaratchi study of Perth's sea breeze system and Bureau wind rose data. Treat the specific figures as indicative and confirm anything you are designing around against the Bureau's own wind roses.

These are stock plans for small, fairly regular spaces, not designs for your block. Do not treat them as a concept — they are a vocabulary.

Imagery is georeferenced but not survey grade — treat anything measured on screen as indicative only, never as a set-out dimension. Note also that Google has announced the desktop version will no longer be available for download from 25 June 2027.

British site, so the recommended fall ranges are quoted against British Standards rather than AS/NZS. The maths is identical everywhere; check your target falls against the NCC and AS/NZS 3500.3 figures rather than the BS numbers on this page.

The 10 mm per watering day target is a Perth and Peel default for a two-day roster on sandy soil. It is a scheduling starting point, not a plant water requirement — hydrozoning changes it, and this course revisits the number in Phase 8.

UK content. Ignore its equipment prices in pounds and ignore its assumptions about where boundary information comes from — in WA that is Landgate, not the UK Land Registry. The measuring technique itself transfers unchanged.

Written from Victoria for professional designers taking briefs from paying clients, so some of it is about managing someone else. Read it as the structure a pro would impose on you, then apply it to yourself. Nothing in it is Perth-specific — the climate, soil and water constraints in this lesson are what you add.

This is Canning's specification, not a state-wide rule. Councils differ by roughly 20 percent on the coefficient alone. Use it to understand the method, then get your own council's number before you order anything.

These are the outputs of the design phase, not a constraints and opportunities plan. Read them for graphic convention, annotation density and layering — not as a template for this deliverable. Fremantle sand over limestone will not match a Bassendean block in Gosnells.

It is a Fremantle block — coastal, limestone-influenced and slightly milder than the eastern suburbs. The orientation logic transfers anywhere in Perth; the plant list is coastal-biased.

Hilton, in Fremantle, on a subdivided lot with two houses — so the shared-space logic will not transfer to a standard single block. The value is in the level of detail, not the layout.

The project is broader than gardens — it covers energy, building fabric and water-sensitive urban design as well. The landscape and water material is the part relevant here.

A 1160 m² Hilton block with two purpose-built houses on it, designed from scratch. You are renovating around an existing house, existing levels and an existing garden, so take the decision logic rather than the layout.

Written for the northern hemisphere and in imperial units. Flip the sun: north-facing is the warm aspect in Perth, not south, and every sun-path diagram in it is mirrored. Ignore the recommended 1 inch = 10 feet scale and use 1:100 (or 1:200 on a big block), and call Before You Dig Australia rather than 811. The drawing method itself transfers unchanged.

It is a membership association, so the directory is a list of members, not a ranking of quality and not a complete list of competent WA landscapers. Plenty of good operators are not members. Treat it as a filtered starting point, then check registration and references yourself.

Membership is voluntary and paid, so plenty of good Perth landscapers are not on it and being on it is not a guarantee. Use it as a shortlist source, not a verdict, and still check licences separately for any work that legally requires one — electrical, plumbing and pool fencing in particular.

This is a lead-generation site, not a research body. It is aggregating other people's published guides rather than measuring completed jobs, so the ranges are wide and the low end usually assumes flat, clear, easy-access ground. Treat it as a plausibility check, never as evidence of what your job should cost.

Rates are not published on the site — the page says prices are subject to change and include 10% GST, and directs you to call. Price-check against Kennards and Coates, both of which also hire levels in Perth, before you book.

It lists individuals, not trading names. Get the surveyor's own name off the quote before you search, because the firm you rang may be a marketing front for a licensee you have not been told about.

A City of Stirling policy adopted 15 October 2024, so the thresholds and the panel process are Stirling's alone. The definitions of structural root zone, tree protection zone and arborist report are generic and transfer anywhere in Perth.

Written for local government heritage officers, not homeowners. Read Part One and the section on defining a curtilage; the assessment criteria and worked examples are for people preparing listings.

Written for broadacre farmers, not gardeners. The mechanisms and the reasoning transfer directly to a suburban block; the machinery and the hectare-scale application rates do not.

Viewing is free; downloading or buying the imagery itself is not (aerial extracts are charged per megabyte plus an extraction fee). The topographic contour layers are broad-scale state mapping and will not resolve the 100–300 mm falls that decide a backyard's drainage — for that you need the levels lesson, not a map.

The line on screen is a spatial dataset, not a surveyed boundary position. Landgate sells the deposited plan separately for a reason. Never scale a setback or a wall position off a map viewer.

Viewing is free but products are paid, and the imagery pricing above is what Landgate published on the day this was checked. The boundary shown on screen is indicative, not a survey — if a boundary dispute is possible, that is a licensed surveyor's job.

It is a blog post, not a climate statistics page. The Bureau publishes 9am and 3pm wind roses for Perth Metro under its climate averages section if you want frequencies and speeds rather than description.

The 100 mm concession for sandy, well-drained areas covers most of the Swan Coastal Plain, but it is the building surveyor's call, not yours. On a renovation the relevant question is what clearance you actually have left today, not what the code required when the house was built.

WA adopted NCC 2025 on 1 May 2026, with NCC 2022 still usable for building permit applications during the transition. The H2P1 wording is unchanged between the two editions.

North American document. Ignore the freeze-thaw material entirely — it does not apply here. Substitute compacted crushed limestone for the crushed aggregate base it describes, since that is the Perth standard, and read its drainage warnings as being about compaction rather than saturation, because a Perth sand subgrade drains fast. Base failure in Perth is almost always poor compaction, an uncompacted service trench, or no base at all.

The title lists encumbrances by document number; to read what an easement actually restricts you usually have to order the referenced document as well, at the same fee. Free alternative — your settlement pack from when you bought the house almost certainly contains a title search already.

Prices shown are retail, not trade — a landscaper buying volume will pay less, and some ranges are priced by pallet or per thousand rather than per square metre. Sand, road base, cement, edge restraint, cutting and delivery are all extra.

It is a regional model, not a bore log for your block. It gives you an estimate and a warning, not a design figure — for a difficult site you still want a geotechnical report.

The zone boundaries and the movement conditions have been revised repeatedly since 2021. Check the current Quarantine Area Notice on this page before you book a removal or take green waste anywhere, rather than relying on what a contractor told you last year.

One contractor's rate card, not a market average, and it carries no last-updated date. Use it as a template for what a properly itemised Perth quote looks like and to check whether someone has left the plumber and electrician out of their number.

$450 is hard to justify for one garden. The free RLB Riders Digest Perth listed above covers the same territory at lower resolution and is the right starting point; buy Rawlinsons only if you are doing this repeatedly or the project is large enough that a 2% pricing error exceeds the book price.

Stirling is one of about thirty metropolitan councils and is here as an example of the process, not as a fee guide — this page does not publish the fee, and each council sets its own price, format and turnaround. Find the equivalent page for your own council. Archived plans are also only as good as what was approved; patios, sheds and paving built without a permit will not appear on them.

This is one council's specification, not a statewide rule, and East Fremantle is a small older municipality with tight lots. The AHD requirement and the 0.0125 m depth factor are common across Perth councils but the numbers vary — read your own council's version before you design anything.

East Fremantle sits on Spearwood sand and limestone. The formula is generic across Perth councils, but the soakwell setback and linkage rules are that Town's own policy — confirm the equivalents with your council.

The R-Codes are read together with your local planning scheme and any local planning policy, and councils vary the provisions. Confirm the numbers that apply to your lot and your R-code with your council before you commit them to the drawing.

Joondalup is deep Bassendean and Spearwood sand where infiltration is easy. If you are on clay in the foothills or a wet winter watertable on the flats, the sizing guide will be optimistic.

Joondalup's policy, not a statewide one. The 0.5 m building permit threshold and the general principle are consistent across Perth, but setback tables and local planning policies differ by council — confirm the current thresholds with yours before you design a level change.

These are commercial construction rates for large, open, machine-accessible areas. A 40 square metre suburban backyard with side-gate-only access will cost more per square metre, not less. Use the RLB figures as a floor and a sanity check, never as a quote.

The setbacks protect Water Corporation infrastructure — they are not the whole story. Your own paving, footings, soakwells and sewer connection need their own clearances, and your council may have separate rules for verge trees.

British, so it assumes British kit and drainage conventions. The instrument technique, the datum convention and the arithmetic transfer to Perth unchanged.

UK-written and building-focused. Equipment prices are quoted in pounds, and the ecology and climate prompts assume a temperate northern site. Substitute the Perth checks — western sun, the afternoon sea breeze, reticulation, bore, limestone and sand — for its weather and vegetation section.

This is a laser level retailer's tool, so the surrounding site is selling instruments. The calculator itself is free, needs no sign-up and cites the standards it checks against — treat the product pages as advertising and the calculator as a utility.

Written for subdivision and street-scale water sensitive urban design as much as for single lots, and the branding predates the merge into DWER. The design factors apply unchanged to a suburban block.

The acidity focus reflects WA agricultural land, where poorly buffered sands make up more than 40% of the south-west's farmland. On the Swan Coastal Plain your problem is more often the opposite — alkalinity from limestone. Read it for the method and the water-versus-CaCl2 distinction, not for the assumption that you need lime.

Nationally framed but built largely on WA research — it notes that 10.2 million hectares of WA is at risk of water repellence. Written for broadacre cropping, so the management section talks about claying at tonnes per hectare. The diagnostic method and the severity scale transfer to a suburban block unchanged.

Written for local government engineers and subdivision designers. Chapters 3 and 4 are superseded by the 2017 Decision process for stormwater management in Western Australia. Skim for principles rather than reading cover to cover.

Dated July 2019 and written for Wanneroo's sandy northern suburbs. Confirm the current sheet and the sizing table with your own council, particularly if you are on shallow limestone or over a high watertable where infiltration rates are worse than the table assumes.

Stirling only. Every Perth council writes its own verge policy and they differ on height limits, permitted materials and whether synthetic turf is allowed at all. Find your own council's page before you rely on any of it.

The calculators are national, so Perth is handled correctly, but they output numbers rather than pictures. Pair them with a visual tool if you want to see the arc instead of reading it off a table.

Global dataset, so Perth is fine — but the first time you use a sun tool in the southern hemisphere, the arc will look wrong to you. Confirm the noon sun sits to the NORTH of your pin before you trust anything you read off it.

Finding a benchmark near your block is one thing; levelling accurately from it across several hundred metres of suburb is another, and beyond what a garden survey needs. Use this when a council wants AHD levels and there is a mark in your street. Otherwise an assumed datum on your own block is correct practice.

The plan gives you boundary geometry, not ground truth. It will not tell you where the fence actually sits, and it carries no levels, no trees and no house footprint. Buy it anyway — it is the only defensible source for your boundary dimensions.

The primary-source page is a summary. Before you commit to a barrier line, confirm the detail with your own local government, because they are the ones who inspect it.

UK, and it shows. The seasonal and colour questions assume a cool temperate garden with a growing season that runs through summer; in Perth the stress season is January and February, and the question you actually need to answer is what survives six weeks over 35 degrees on two watering days a week. Ignore the plant and lawn assumptions entirely and keep the question structure.

A UK trade body. The stage names and fee logic transfer; the assumptions about lawn, clay soil, planning consent and drainage do not. Ignore its regulatory references entirely — WA approvals are covered in Phase 4.

Run by a NSW consulting arborist firm as a lead generator. The maths is the standard's rather than theirs, so the numbers are fine, but the output is not an arborist report and no WA council will accept it as one.

Vincent's position can change — several inner Perth councils have moved toward tree registers in recent years. Confirm the current position with the planning counter before you rely on it.

Applies only inside the City of South Perth. Do not assume your council does the same — two of the three councils compared in this lesson do something completely different.

Supply only and pickup or delivered price — it excludes removing what is there, levelling, sand or soil conditioner, fertiliser and laying. Delivery is charged separately.

This is a Perth soil supplier's own page, and it recommends its own products alongside the generic advice. The rates and the reasoning are sound and match what the trade uses; treat the specific product recommendations as advertising and price-check them against other Perth soil yards before ordering.

It screens for metals only. It will not give you pH, organic carbon, phosphorus or salinity, so it supplements your other tests rather than replacing them. Postage from Perth to Sydney adds a few days and a few dollars; sample and send early in your site analysis, not the week you want to plant.

Perth and Peel only, existing Water Corporation account, one claim per customer, and you must be home to receive the signed checklist. The round shown at the time of checking covered work completed between 1 September 2025 and 31 May 2026 — confirm the current round's dates on the page before you plan around it.

Checked in August 2026, the published round ran from 1 September 2025 to 31 May 2026 for Perth and Peel Water Corporation account holders with a system that has watered in the last two years. The program runs in annual rounds and allocations can be exhausted early, so confirm the current round dates and eligibility before you book the work.

"Waterwise" here means established, in improved soil, watering roughly once a week through summer. Straight out of the bag Perth sand is not improved soil, so the water figures assume work you have not done yet.

Written for software projects. The vocabulary is the same, the arithmetic is the same, and the discipline transfers directly — read "requirement" as "element of the garden" and "effort" as "budget".

Written by an industry body with an interest in presentation and no interest in your maintenance load. It offers no numbers on return on investment, because there are none worth quoting — treat any landscaper who quotes you a resale percentage with suspicion.

Written as legislation, not guidance. The duties in Part 6.3 attach to a person conducting a business or undertaking — so they bind the landscaper, excavator operator or plumber you engage, and they bind you if you engage workers, rather than a homeowner digging alone on their own house.