Websites for carpenters working across Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland and Port Stephens, with galleries of decks, pergolas and waterfront work, your NSW licence on every page, and a quote form that finds out early whether a property sits in a mine subsidence district or on the water.
Carpentry around Newcastle raises questions a Sydney deck rarely does. Is the house over old coal workings? Is the job a jetty or boat shed on the lake, with its own approval steps? A site that shows you know the answers, next to your photos and licence, separates the straightforward enquiries from the ones that will take longer to get started.
Decks, pergolas and stairs in one group; jetties, boat sheds and foreshore stairs in another; internal fit-outs in a third. Captions that name the suburb, such as Warners Bay, Belmont or Nelson Bay, show where you work as well as what you build.
Alongside size, height and a photo upload, the form can ask whether the owner knows the property's Surface Development Guideline, which anyone can look up on the NSW Planning Portal. For a deck or veranda up to 50 m², that guideline decides whether Subsidence Advisory has to approve the work, so knowing it at the start can save a wasted visit.
If you build or repair jetties, landing platforms or boat sheds, give them a section that says which parts you handle: the drawings, the council application, the Crown Lands paperwork, or only the build once approvals are through. Lakeside owners often don't know the order things happen in, and the page can set it out for them.
Plenty of people in Lake Macquarie or Maitland still say they live in Newcastle. Listing the suburbs you cover under Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Port Stephens and Cessnock makes your reach clear without one long run of place names.
Licensing is a state matter, so the Hunter follows the same rules as Sydney. The footer carries the licensee or business name, the carpentry licence number with its category and a business phone, plus a link to the NSW Government's online licence check.
Hunter builders hiring subbies want to know which stages you take on, how far up the valley you'll travel and when you're next free. Three or four lines and a direct call button cover it, without sending them through your residential gallery.
The state-wide rules apply here just as they do in Sydney: a contractor licence for residential carpentry worth more than $5,000, advertising (websites included) that shows the licence name, number, category and a business phone, and exempt development limits for decks and pergolas such as a 25 m² area and a floor no more than 1 m above the ground. Our page for Sydney carpenters sets those out with sources, along with the extra condition on bush fire prone land, where an exempt deck or pergola within 5 m of a house has to be non-combustible. What follows is particular to the Hunter.
Mine subsidence. Several declared Mine Subsidence Districts carry Hunter names, among them Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Killingworth-Wallsend, East Maitland and Swansea Heads, and Subsidence Advisory NSW says its approval is needed before work starts on a property in a district. Its exempt development list, last updated in April 2023, carves out a good deal of carpentry. Pergolas up to 50 m² are exempt under every Surface Development Guideline. Balconies, decks, terraces and verandas up to 50 m² are exempt except under Guidelines 1, 1A, 4, 5 and 7. Internal alterations in timber or steel framing, including doors, windows, ceilings and kitchens, are exempt where there's no structural change, and so are timber and metal fences. Anything the list doesn't name needs Subsidence Advisory approval. That approval sits alongside council or certifier approval rather than replacing it, so council's rules still apply to work Subsidence Advisory exempts.
Lake Macquarie's foreshore. Council's development control plan has a section on foreshore and waterway development with controls a jetty builder works to. A private jetty is to sit on the line of a shared side boundary so neighbours can use it too, be 1.2 m wide (minor variations are considered), run only as far as it takes to reach 1.5 m of water at the end or 30 m from the mean high water mark, whichever is shorter, and finish between 600 and 750 mm above that mark, with decking laid so it isn't a hazard for wheelchairs. Domestic boat sheds are capped at 36 m² and 3 m high with a skillion roof, or 3.5 m with a gable or hip, and council won't support using their roofs as sundecks. Foreshore stairs can be no wider than 1.2 m, built in timber, masonry, stone or galvanised metal. Work below the mean high water mark needs an Aquatic Habitat Assessment from a suitably qualified consultant.
Crown land under the water. Crown Lands manages waterfront land below the mean high-water mark, and its guidance for waterfront landowners sets out the order for a new jetty or pontoon: written consent from DPI Fisheries and Transport for NSW Maritime, then the department's consent as landowner, then council approval, and last a domestic waterfront licence. Construction can't start until that licence has been issued, and building earlier puts the owner and the people doing the work in breach of the Crown Land Management Act 2016. On Subsidence Advisory's list, domestic jetties in timber or concrete are exempt under every guideline, so in a district the Crown and council steps are the ones to plan around.
The NSW Government plans Greater Newcastle as five council areas: Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Port Stephens and Cessnock. Our team is in Adelaide, at Hutt St, so a Hunter carpenter works with us by phone and email rather than at a site meeting. The client nearest to you is Phoenix Housekeeping, a cleaning business in the Lake Macquarie area whose suburb pages reach Cessnock and the Central Coast. We describe the rules in plain terms and link to the agencies that set them; checking how they apply to a particular job stays with you and your certifier.
There's no carpenter in our portfolio yet. The two NSW client sites nearest to what a carpenter needs belong to a Bega Valley earthworks and structural landscaping business whose site is built around job photos, and a Lake Macquarie service business with a page for each part of its area.
Bobcat and excavator work, structural landscaping and licensed pool building around South Pambula. The one-page site has three service sections, a 42-photo gallery that swipes on a phone, a testimonial carousel and a contact form with its own thank-you page. Decks, pergolas and jetties would sit well in the same layout.
Visit the Tomi's Bobcat site (opens in a new tab) See it in our portfolio
A family cleaning business serving Lake Macquarie, Cessnock and the Central Coast. Its suburb pages, published prices and a quote form with a discreet call-back option show how a Hunter business can cover a spread-out area clearly.
Visit the Phoenix Housekeeping site (opens in a new tab) See it in our portfolio
“He listened to my feedback and made no hesitations to revise and adjust my website until we were completely happy with it.”
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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.
Our suggestion for a carpenter working solo
$399
Your services, a gallery, licence line, the councils and suburbs you cover, and a quote form with the subsidence and waterfront questions, on one page.
$899
Adds a page for waterfront work (jetties, boat sheds and foreshore stairs) and one for builders who need a carpentry subbie.
$1,499
For a crew: pages for decks and pergolas, waterfront work, renovations and fit-outs, an about page, and pages for Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Maitland.
That turns on the property's Surface Development Guideline. On Subsidence Advisory's exempt list, decks up to 50 m² are exempt from its approval except under Guidelines 1, 1A, 4, 5 and 7, and pergolas up to 50 m² are exempt under all of them. We'd summarise that on the site and link to Subsidence Advisory's exempt developments page rather than advise on a particular property.
Which stages you handle and which the owner arranges. Council's foreshore controls set a jetty's width, length, height and shared siting, and Crown Lands needs its licence issued before work starts below the mean high water mark. A short section on how a jetty job runs, with photos of your own jetties, explains why it takes longer to begin than a deck.
Yes. It's one NSW contractor licence, needed for residential carpentry worth more than $5,000, and the advertising rules are the same, so the site shows the name, the number with its category and a business phone. Our Sydney carpenters page has the detail and sources.
The five Greater Newcastle councils make a good frame: Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Port Stephens and Cessnock, with your main suburbs under each. If you head up the valley or north of Port Stephens only for bigger jobs, say that separately so people further out know to ask.
Yes, that's how we work with every business outside Adelaide. You send photos, your licence details and your list of suburbs by email, we talk through anything unclear on the phone, and you check the draft from a link. We reply within 24 hours, and there's nothing to pay until you approve the site.
Send us your licence number, photos of a few decks, pergolas or jetties, and the councils you cover. We'll come back with a quote, build the draft for you to check, and you pay only when you approve it.
We reply within 24 hours. Prefer email? info@webcraftstudio.com.au