City of Gold Coast rules for businesses
Trade waste needs a permit
If your business sends anything other than normal domestic wastewater to the sewer, you may need a trade waste permit from the City. Its examples include cafés and restaurants, mechanical workshops, vehicle washes, laundromats and dry cleaners.
Grease arrestors for food businesses
Most trade waste must be treated before it reaches the sewer. Food businesses are generally required to install a grease arrestor where food is prepared and utensils are washed.
Backflow tests every year
The City registers testable backflow devices. The property owner must have each one tested annually by a Queensland licensed plumber with a backflow endorsement.
A city of units
At the 2021 Census, 21.7% of occupied homes in the Gold Coast council area were flats or apartments. Plumbing work on unit complexes, towers and community title schemes goes through the City's commercial plumbing applications.
Trade waste and pre-treatment
Washing dishes, preparing food, cleaning vehicles and metal finishing all produce trade waste. The City expects most of it to pass through pre-treatment first: grease arrestors, dry basket arrestors, silt traps or oily water separators, sized for the business and kept maintained.
If more than one business on a property discharges trade waste, each needs its own application. The City may ask for more information or inspect your treatment system. A plumber who does commercial kitchens can size an arrestor and tell you what your permit conditions mean in practice.
Backflow devices: the owner's annual job
A backflow prevention device stops water from your property flowing back into the drinking water supply. Only a Queensland licensed plumber with a backflow endorsement can test one, and the owner is responsible for having it done each year.
If a device fails, the plumber must repair or replace it immediately, and the test report goes to the City within 10 business days. Tampering with a device, or removing it without approval, is a criminal offence. See our backflow testing page for the device types.
New work needs approval
The City treats multiple residential buildings, factories, warehouses, residential towers, unit complexes and community title schemes as commercial plumbing applications. Sewered and unsewered sites apply differently.
If the City needs nothing more, it issues a permit within 10 business days, and the work then has inspections booked along the way. Plumbing work also has to be done by a QBCC-licensed plumber: check the business and the worker on the QBCC registers.
Hot water and pressure
Childcare centres, schools, aged care and health care sites have a lower hot water limit of 45°C in areas used by the people they care for. Our national commercial plumbing page explains the devices that achieve it.
Pressure matters in larger buildings too. City mains run between 220 kPa and around 900 kPa, while AS/NZS 3500 caps operating pressure inside a building at 500 kPa, other than fire service outlets.
Questions for a commercial plumber
- Do we need a trade waste permit, and is our grease arrestor the right size?
- Do you hold a backflow endorsement, and will you lodge the test report with the City?
- Can you work outside our trading hours?
- Does this job need a commercial plumbing application, and who lodges it?
What we would do
List every backflow device and arrestor on your site, with the date each was last tested or serviced, and put the annual backflow test in the calendar. Before you fit out a new food business, ask the City whether you need a trade waste permit and what pre-treatment it expects, then have a commercial plumber size the arrestor to suit. For a strata building, agree with the body corporate who arranges and pays for shared plumbing before anything goes wrong.