Reline 07 5 min read Guide
Licensing, Sydney Water and whose pipe it actually is
Drainage is licensed work in NSW. Who is allowed to reline your sewer, where your pipe ends and Sydney Water begins, and how to check both.
Short answer: yes, licensed, always. Drainage is licensed work in NSW, and the licence number should be on the quote where you can check it against the register. Just as important: know whose pipe it is before anyone charges you to fix it.
Why the licence matters here specifically
A sewer reline is permanent infrastructure. It is installed once, buried, and expected to outlast the mortgage. The licence is the state’s mechanism for making someone accountable for that: a licensed drainer works to AS/NZS 3500 drainage practice, carries the insurance, and has a number you can look up before a dollar moves. An unlicensed reline is not a bargain. It is an uninsured experiment under your lawn.
The two minute licence check
- Take the licence number off the quote. No number on the quote is itself an answer.
- Check it on the NSW Fair Trading public register. It takes a minute.
- Confirm the insurance line while you are there. Ours is $20M public liability (demo value here).
Your pipe, the council’s, or Sydney Water’s
Three parties can own the pipe under one Sydney block, and the rules change at the line. Your private sanitary drainage runs to the boundary shaft: yours to fix, our licence to fix it under. Past the boundary, the sewer main is a Sydney Water asset: faults there are reported, with your footage, for the utility to repair. Stormwater under footpaths and verges is usually council territory, with its own notification pathway.
Paying for someone else's pipe
The ugly version of getting this wrong: paying thousands to fix a fault that was past your
boundary and never your responsibility. A distance stamped survey prevents it. The metre
mark tells you which side of the boundary shaft the fault sits on, before you spend.
What we map on every survey
Every Reline survey logs where your line ends, which side each fault sits on, and what
that means for who pays. If the answer is "not you", you get the footage to lodge, and
no invoice for the fault.
Common questions
Is pipe relining licensed work in NSW?
Yes. Sanitary drainage work in NSW requires a licensed drainer under NSW Fair Trading, and relining a sewer is drainage work. The licence number belongs on the quote and the invoice. Ours is printed on both (a demo value on this demonstration site).
What if the fault is past my boundary?
Then it is usually a Sydney Water asset and their repair, not your bill. The boundary shaft is the dividing line. A survey that maps the fault distance tells you which side it sits on, and the footage is your evidence when you lodge it.
Does relining need council approval?
Relining your own private sanitary drainage generally proceeds under the licensed drainer’s compliance obligations rather than a separate approval. Work touching council stormwater or utility assets runs on notification pathways. The point of hiring licensed is that mapping this is our job, documented, not yours.