Websites for Adelaide carpenters who build decks and pergolas, rebuild villa verandahs or frame for builders, made by a web design team on Hutt St. Your CBS licence where an owner can check it, jobs grouped by the kind of house they were done on, and a quote form that tells a low deck from a roofed verandah before you drive out to measure up.
Carpentry enquiries in Adelaide come from very different houses. A Norwood owner wants the front verandah put back the way it looked when the house was built. A family in a newer northern suburbs estate wants a verandah off the family room. Someone in Stirling has a rotten deck in a bushfire-prone area, and a site supervisor needs a framer next month. Each starts with a different question, and South Australia's licensing and approval rules sit behind most of them.
HIA's guide to licensing in South Australia says anyone carrying out building work for another person needs a building work contractor's licence from Consumer and Business Services (CBS), and that the licence sets out the type of work it allows. We put the licence number and the exact name on the licence, or your registered business name, in the footer of every page as text, with a link to the CBS public register. If your licence or supervisor registration is limited to certain work, the services we list follow it, so the site never offers a job the licence doesn't cover.
Since 10 November 2025, South Australia has treated domestic building work worth less than $20,000 as minor domestic building work, and a small deck, a pergola or a verandah repair can sit under that line. Below it the law asks for no written contract or indemnity insurance, yet the licence and the statutory warranties still apply, and owners still want to know what happens to their money. A short How we quote section can say, in your words, whether every job goes in writing, what you ask for up front and when the balance falls due.
The City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters fact sheet on front verandahs lists the details owners of Victorian and Edwardian houses read about: bullnose, concave or ogee roof profiles, timber posts that are usually stop-chamfered and may carry capital mouldings, carved brackets that were more popular on Edwardian houses, and timber scotias under the gutters. Captions written the same way, such as “Bullnose verandah rebuilt, stop-chamfered posts and new scotias, St Peters”, tell an owner in Norwood or St Peters you know the house type.
The Law Handbook gives decks no more than 50 cm above the ground, and pergolas without a hard roof, as examples of work that can be exempt from approval, each with conditions, while the City of Salisbury tells residents most verandahs and carports need development approval. So the form asks how high the deck will sit, whether the roof will be open, shade cloth or solid sheeting, whether it attaches to the house or stands forward of it, whether the property is in a heritage or historic area, the suburb, and for two or three photos.
Salisbury's list for a verandah or carport application runs to a scaled site plan with boundaries and stormwater, elevations showing the cladding, a structural engineer's design and the roof, wall and floor framing details. Say on the site whether you prepare that set and lodge it through PlanSA, use a draftsperson and engineer you name, or leave approvals to the owner.
Adelaide Hills Council says decks and outbuildings often need a private Bushfire Attack Level assessment as part of building approval, and that council can't give a property its BAL. If you build in Stirling, Aldgate or Lobethal, a Hills page naming the BAL levels you've built decks to, the boards and framing used at each, and whether you or the owner books the assessor saves a round of phone calls.
Pulling up a decayed deck or a verandah floor is everyday work around Adelaide, and the Hills council's termite fact sheet names Coptotermes frenchi as the species behind most timber pest damage to buildings in South Australia. Before-and-after pairs, with a line on how the replacement posts are set and whether a licensed pest controller treated the site first, show an owner the part of the job that disappears once the boards go down.
Licensing, in brief. South Australia's building work contractor's licence, the supervisor registration behind it and the rule that advertising carries your licence number are set out on our page for Adelaide builders. Three further points matter to carpenters. HIA's guide to licensing in South Australia notes that a licence states the work it permits and can carry conditions such as building height or a maximum contract value, and that the supervisor's registration must cover the same type of work. It says a subcontractor doing work for a licensed builder needs a licence for the type of work they carry out, while an employee doesn't unless they are the nominated supervisor. And it treats floating floors not used for waterproofing as outside building work, while pest control needs its own specialised licence. If any of that touches your business, CBS is where to confirm it; the website simply lists what your licence says.
Small jobs, contracts and deposits. The Legal Services Commission's Law Handbook explains that from 10 November 2025, domestic building work worth less than $20,000 is minor domestic building work. For those jobs there's no legislative requirement for a written contract or building indemnity insurance, but the builder still has to be appropriately licensed and the statutory warranties in section 32 of the Building Work Contractors Act 1995 apply either way. Above $20,000, the contract must be in writing, name your business and licence number, and come with the prescribed Form 1 notice. The Handbook also lists the deposit limits in the Building Work Contractors Regulations 2026, with one limit for work up to $20,000 and another above it. The Handbook's pages on minor domestic building work and building work contracts cover both in plain language, and they're worth linking from your site rather than retelling.
Decks, pergolas and verandahs. The Law Handbook's page on categories of development lists decks no more than 50 cm above the ground and pergolas without a hard roof as exempt development, with conditions, and notes that the accepted development pathway, which needs no planning consent, doesn't apply in heritage areas or flood zones. For roofed structures, councils are blunter. The City of Salisbury says most carports, verandahs and garages need development approval, and that structures forward of the house are unlikely to be supported, apart from narrow verandahs and porches shading windows and the front door. In the eastern suburbs, Norwood Payneham & St Peters explains that each area under the Historic Area Overlay has its own Historic Area Statement listing the attributes new work is assessed against. That makes a front verandah rebuild in Norwood a different job from a backyard pergola in Salisbury, and the website can treat them differently.
The Hills: bushfire and termites. Adelaide Hills Council lists outbuildings and decks among work that often needs a private BAL assessment, points to Ministerial Building Standard MBS-008 for designated bushfire prone areas, and says that where an assessment is required, residents arrange it through a private provider. The CFS notes that its application for preliminary agency advice assesses proposed plans but excludes decks and pergolas. The same council's termite fact sheet notes that Coptotermes acinaciformis nests in places such as filled-in verandahs where timber has been buried, and that Heterotermes ferox goes for damp, rotting timber in contact with the soil, fences and poles included. A carpenter replacing old decks and verandah floors from Crafers to Uraidla has good reason to photograph what turns up under the boards.
How we'd work with you. We're based at Ste 3/110 Hutt St in the city. We haven't built a site for a carpenter yet; our nearest Adelaide work is for a renovation builder, a structural engineering practice and a painting company. Most projects run by phone and email, which suits someone on the tools all day, and if you'd rather talk it through face to face before starting, we can set that up. You send the licence details, photos and suburbs; we arrange them, link the official guidance, and leave licensing and approval calls to you, CBS and your certifier.
No carpentry business is in our portfolio yet. These two Adelaide clients come closest: a licensed renovation builder whose site splits its work into service and area pages, and a structural engineering practice whose quote form accepts file uploads, which a deck or verandah enquiry often needs.
Licensed builder working across Adelaide, the Hills and the Fleurieu. Its 30 pages include seven service pages, seven area pages and five planning guides, ending in a seven-step quote form. A carpenter could follow the same plan at a smaller size: a page each for decks, pergolas and verandah restoration, and one guide to how approvals work on your jobs.
Visit the Bright Building site (opens in a new tab) See it in our portfolio
Adelaide structural engineers designing retaining walls, slabs and stormwater for homeowners and builders. The quote form shows a fee range and accepts uploaded files, so a customer can attach plans or photos. A carpenter's form can take the same kind of files, from a draftsperson's drawing to a photo of a sagging verandah beam.
Visit the Simple Engineers site (opens in a new tab) See it in our portfolio
“…Salem walked us through everything, gave us a fixed quote so we knew exactly what we were paying, and turned around the build faster than we thought possible.”
★ 5.0 from 33 Google reviews (opens in a new tab)
Want numbers from a trade site? Western Sydney Stump Grinding has landed at least 62 jobs, about $46,500 of work, from a single-page site we built. Read the case study.
See all 14 recent client sites in our portfolio.
$399
Licence line, services that match it, one gallery split into decks, pergolas and verandahs, your suburbs and the 50 cm quote form, all on a single page.
Our suggestion for most Adelaide carpenters
$899
A home page, a decks and pergolas page covering how you handle approvals and small-job paperwork, and a verandah restoration page for villa owners.
$1,499
Separate pages for decks, pergolas, verandah restoration, Hills and bushfire-area work, rot and termite repairs and builders' framing, plus a How we quote page and the home page.
What you actually do, stated simply. Since 10 November 2025, jobs under $20,000 have been minor domestic building work, and the Law Handbook notes there's no legislative requirement for a written contract on them, though licensing and the statutory warranties still apply. If you put every job in writing anyway, say so. If you take a deposit, the Building Work Contractors Regulations 2026 set what's allowed, so check the current limit with CBS before any figure goes on the site; we'd rather link to the guidance than print a number that may change.
We'd steer clear of that. The Law Handbook gives decks up to 50 cm above the ground and pergolas without a hard roof as exempt examples, but each comes with conditions, and the accepted development pathway doesn't apply in heritage areas or flood zones. A safer page explains how you check: you ask for the height, roof type and address, and confirm with the council or a certifier before quoting wherever approval looks likely.
A short one can be. HIA's guide says a subcontractor doing work for a licensed builder needs a building work contractor's licence for that type of work, so a site supervisor checking you out wants the licence number, your supervisor registration if it's in your name, the stages you take on and how far across Adelaide you'll travel. One page with those details and a direct number suits that reader. Our Adelaide tradies page covers describing a service area.
Photos of finished verandahs with captions that use the terms owners have already read: the roof profile, post detail, brackets and scotias the council's front verandah fact sheet describes. Add a line on whether you prepare the development application for a house under the Historic Area Overlay or work with the owner's designer, and a before photo wherever you have one. A pair showing a plain steel post swapped back to a stop-chamfered timber one tells the story in a single glance.
No. Most of our projects happen by phone and email: you send your words, photos, licence details and the suburbs you cover, we send a draft link you can check on your phone between jobs, and you ask for changes until it's right. You pay once you approve it. If you'd like to sit down first, call 0451 072 412 and we'll find a time.
Send us your BLD number, a few lines in your own words about each kind of job, a dozen photos of decks, pergolas or verandahs you've built, and the suburbs you want more work from. We'll build the draft and send you the link, and you pay only once you're happy with it.
We reply within 24 hours. Prefer email? info@webcraftstudio.com.au