Websites for Sydney carpenters that group decks, pergolas, stairs and fit-outs by suburb, carry your NSW carpentry licence the way the advertising rules ask, and collect the measurements that show early whether a job is likely to need approval.
A Sydney homeowner planning a deck usually wants two answers before talking price: is this carpenter licensed, and will the job need approval? A builder hunting for a subbie wants your licence category and the parts of the city you'll drive to. The site should settle both within the first screen or two, then let the photos make the case.
NSW issues contractor licences by category, and Carpentry is a category of its own. The footer of every page shows the licence holder or registered business name, the number with its category and a business phone, beside a link to the NSW Government's home building licence check, which lists a licence's categories, status and expiry date.
Floor area in square metres, how high the floor sits above the ground, the distance to the nearest boundary, whether it will be roofed and attached to the house, and whether the block is mapped bush fire prone. The NSW exempt development standards turn on those same measures, so the answers tell you before the site visit whether a council application is likely to be part of the job.
Captions such as “Spotted gum deck, Caringbah” or “Hardwood stairs, Paddington terrace” tell a reader in two seconds what you build and whether you work near them. Group the photos by kind of job, so someone after a pergola isn't scrolling past wardrobes to find one.
If you build on the Northern Beaches, in Ku-ring-gai or in other mapped bush fire prone suburbs, a short section of jobs built to a stated Bushfire Attack Level, with the materials used, shows owners there that you've done it before. The BAL comes from the consultant's certificate or report, so we'd quote it as written.
Framing, fix-out, formwork, doors and hardware: list the stages you take on, the regions you cover, your insurance and how much notice you need. A site supervisor ringing around for a subbie on a Friday afternoon wants those four facts and a phone button, not a deck gallery.
Nobody searches for “Greater Sydney carpentry”. They type the Hills District, the Inner West or the Sutherland Shire, or their own suburb. A short list of regions with their main suburbs underneath, plus a line on where you don't travel, keeps the enquiries inside your patch.
Licensing. Carpentry is licensed residential building work in NSW. A contractor licence is needed for carpentry valued at more than $5,000 in labour and materials, GST included. The NSW Government defines carpentry as cutting and placing timber or timber composites for on-site construction, which takes in framing, stairs, doors, windows and floors, footings and structural support for pergolas, timber decks and fences, non-habitable shelters such as pergolas and gazebos, and formwork for concreting. It leaves out garages, sheds and carports, plasterboard (licensed separately as dry plastering) and concrete paths and slabs. The qualifications listed include the CPC30220 Certificate III in Carpentry.
Advertising and contracts. The state's guidance on building trade advertisements says the rules cover the internet as well as print, TV and radio. An ad has to show the licensee's name (a registered business name can stand in), the licence number with the correct category of work and a business phone number. It can't state part of a price unless the single full price is clearly stated too, and it can't mislead or hide a material fact. On the contract side, residential work over $5,000 needs a written contract and a copy of the Consumer Building Guide, a small jobs contract covers work up to $20,000 and a full home building contract applies above that, the deposit is capped at 10 percent, and contracts over $20,000 come with a Home Building Compensation certificate that owners are told to check before paying a deposit. A large roofed deck can reach that higher bracket, so a sentence on how you contract is worth having.
Approvals. Many small decks and pergolas in NSW are built as exempt development, with no planning or building approval, but only when they meet every standard. NSW Planning's fact sheet lists them: no more than 25 m² in area; a floor no higher than 1 m above existing ground; no more than 3 m at the highest point; behind the building line of any road frontage; at least 900 mm from the lot boundary, or 5 m in rural and large-lot residential zones; and a cap on all such structures on the lot of 15 percent of the house's ground floor area, or 25 m² on lots of 300 m² or less. A roofed structure attached to the house can't sit above its gutter line, a connection to the fascia has to follow an engineer's specifications, and roof water must go into the existing stormwater system. If a job can't meet all of that, the fact sheet says to get development approval from council first.
Bush fire prone land. Councils such as Northern Beaches and Ku-ring-gai map bush fire prone land; Ku-ring-gai's map takes in most vegetated areas and all land within a set distance of them. The NSW Planning guidance adds a condition for exempt decks and pergolas on that land: if the structure is within 5 m of a house, it has to be built from non-combustible material. Both councils note that their maps don't give a property's Bushfire Attack Level; a consultant's certificate or report states it, and both name AS 3959-2018, Construction of buildings in bushfire-prone areas, for development on mapped land. The NSW RFS runs an online tool, built from the councils' maps, that shows whether a property is mapped, and the council's planning certificate confirms it.
Our team works from Hutt St in Adelaide, so Sydney carpenters deal with us by phone and email. Two of our current clients are in Sydney: a tree service out west and a family dispute resolution practice. Send the licence details, a folder of finished jobs and your suburb list; the draft comes back as a link you can open on your phone, and payment waits until you've signed it off. We present what you tell us about your work and link to the official guidance for the rules; we don't give planning or legal advice.
We haven't built for a carpenter yet. The nearest examples are a licensed Adelaide renovation builder, whose site splits its work into service pages much as a carpenter might separate decks from fit-outs, and a Western Sydney tree service whose single page is built around fast quote requests.
Renovations, extensions and new homes across Adelaide, the Adelaide Hills and the Fleurieu. Thirty pages, with seven for individual services and seven for service areas, plus a project gallery, planning guides and a seven-step quote form. Replace kitchens and extensions with decks, pergolas and stairs and the same structure works for a carpentry business.
Visit the Bright Building site (opens in a new tab) See it in our portfolio
A family tree service covering Western and Greater Sydney. One page carries two quote forms, customer reviews, the list of areas served and tap-to-call throughout, which suits customers who would rather ring than fill in a form.
Visit the WS Stump Grinding site (opens in a new tab) See it in our portfolio
“They were very helpful and envisioned exactly what I was wanting for my website.”
★ 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, the work you take on, a gallery, your regions and a quote form with the size and height questions, all on a single page.
Our suggestion for most Sydney carpenters
$899
A home page, a decks and pergolas page with its own photos and approval notes, and a page for builders looking for a carpentry subbie.
$1,499
Separate pages for decks, pergolas, stairs, fit-outs and bushfire-area work, plus pages for the two or three regions you most want jobs from.
The NSW guidance on building trade advertisements covers websites. It asks for the licensee's name or a registered business name, the licence number with its category of work, and a business phone number. We place those in the footer of every page and link to the state's licence check. Read the NSW guidance against your own licence before the site goes live.
We'd steer clear of a blanket promise. The site can say that smaller decks and pergolas may be exempt development in NSW if they meet every standard, such as 25 m² or less and a floor no more than 1 m off the ground, and link to the NSW Planning fact sheet. Whether a particular backyard qualifies depends on the block, its zone and any heritage or bushfire mapping, so the wording should leave that call to your site visit.
That you build to the BAL in the client's certificate or report, and which levels you've built to, with a project photo for each where you have one. Northern Beaches Council's map shows whether land is bush fire prone but not its BAL. It's also worth a line on the decks page that, under the NSW Planning guidance, an exempt deck within 5 m of a house on that land has to be non-combustible.
You can, with care. The NSW rules don't allow an ad to show part of a price unless the full single price is clearly stated, so any figure should be the whole price for a clearly described job. The other option is to explain how you quote: photos and rough measurements through the form, a site visit, then a written quote and contract.
The regions you'll really quote in, with the main suburbs under each, such as the Hills District, the Northern Beaches, the Inner West or the Sutherland Shire. If you'll go further only for larger jobs or builders' work, give that its own line. The list can change whenever you like after launch, since text changes on existing pages are covered by the $30 monthly hosting.
Send us your licence number, a handful of deck, pergola or stair photos and the regions you work in. We'll reply with a quote and build the draft, and you pay only once you're happy with it.
We reply within 24 hours. Prefer email? info@webcraftstudio.com.au