By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Why does registration alone not guarantee a gasfitter is making money on compliance work?
Holding a licence gives a gasfitter the legal right to charge for restricted work such as a compliance certificate, a pressure test or a gas safety check. It says nothing about whether that charge actually survives through to net profit. Many trade businesses track the quoted price on a compliance job but never properly book the labour and materials that went into the pressure test, the leak detection and the paperwork against that job's own cost of sales.
The result can be a gasfitting business that looks fully booked and fully compliant, every compliance certificate signed off correctly, every appliance install and callout on the schedule, while the margin on that work quietly leaks away between the quote and the bank account. The licence and the profit are two different questions, and only one of them shows up on the Board's website.
What happens if gasfitting work goes ahead without the right registration and licence?
In New Zealand, all people doing or assisting in doing gasfitting work must be registered and licensed, or otherwise authorised, under the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006, according to the Registration policy. WorkSafe says work on any gas installation, including caravans and boats, is considered gasfitting and must be carried out by a person authorised under that Act, as set out on Who must comply.
Carrying out restricted plumbing, gasfitting or drainlaying work without a current New Zealand licence is illegal, as stated on the Board's page for people registering with overseas qualifications. For a gasfitter running a crew, that risk sits with the business, not just the person on the tools, if an apprentice or labourer does gasfitting work without proper registration and supervision behind them.
This is general information, not legal, tax or employment advice. Check your own situation with the body named here or a qualified adviser.
What licence or registration do you need to legally do gasfitting work in New Zealand?
You need to be registered and hold the appropriate licence class issued by the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board before you sign off restricted gasfitting work such as appliance installs, servicing, gas line extensions or compliance certificates. The Board designates classes including Certifying Gasfitter, Gasfitter and Restricted Gasfitter, according to the consultation document on registration and licensing, and restricted and plumber/gasfitter/drainlayer licence holders must have an active certifying licence holder in the trade listed as their supervisor, as explained on understanding registration and licence classes.
If you cannot yet meet full registration requirements for a particular area of gasfitting, Section 20 authorisation under the Act lets you work or supervise in that named area, whether that is LPG, natural gas, hot water or a specific appliance type, after an assessment, according to the gasfitting authorisation page. Which class or authorisation fits your business, and your crew, depends on the mix of work you take on, and that is worth checking directly with the Board.
What certificates do you need to issue once the gasfitting work is on site?
Once gasfitting work is completed and connected, a gas safety certificate is required under Regulation 52B of the Gas (Safety and Measurement) Regulations, and the person who did the connection, or their supervising certifying gasfitter if working under supervision, must issue it once satisfied the installation is safe to use, according to WorkSafe's gas safety certificate page. For higher risk gasfitting work, the person issuing the certificate of compliance must also enter details of the job on the Electricity and Gas High-risk Database within the set number of working days of issuing it, as described on getting gas work done.
Every one of these is paperwork sitting on top of the job itself: the pressure test on the gas line, the safety check on the heater, cooktop or flue, the compliance certificate, and now a database entry. None of it is billable to the customer beyond what was quoted, and all of it takes real time off the tools.
How do you know the gross profit on a compliance job is actually holding up?
You know by watching the gross profit margin on that specific job type, not by trusting the quote you sent out weeks ago. Picture a gasfitter whose quoting was slow and manual, where with so many parts on every job, right down to brackets and fittings, small materials kept getting left off a quote and then turning up missing on site. What changed was a quoting template with a checklist for each type of job, covering every material down to the small stuff, so the quote matched what actually went out on the van.
The same gap shows up on compliance work. The quote might price the pressure test and the certificate correctly, but if the hours spent on the safety check, writing up the compliance certificate and logging it on the high-risk database get lumped into general overheads instead of being booked against that job, the gross profit margin on compliance work looks fine on paper and is thin or negative in reality. That is the gross to net gap: a margin that was correct when quoted and wrong by the time the job is closed off, because the labour behind the paperwork was never properly counted.
This is where AI agents change what a gasfitter sees. An AI agent is software that does a job the way you would, using your prices, your wording and your rules, so it can take on the non-billable work of logging time against the right job, flagging a compliance certificate before it is signed off so its materials and labour are already booked, and pulling the gross profit on compliance work specifically, rather than lumped in with every other appliance install or callout. AI agents working this way give a data first view of that number, built from the gasfitter's own job and finance data each week rather than a memory of how the quote looked, which is what actually shows whether the right licence is converting into profit.
Where can you check the current rules?
- Understanding registration and licence classes - covers the difference between being registered and holding a licence, and supervision requirements for restricted and plumber/gasfitter/drainlayer licence holders.
- Registration policy - sets out who must be registered and licensed to do plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying work under the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006.
- Gasfitting authorisation (Section 20) - covers authorisation to work or supervise in a specific area of gasfitting after an assessment, for gasfitters who cannot meet full registration requirements.
- Register with overseas qualifications or under TTMRA - covers registering and licensing to work in New Zealand if moving from overseas.
- Consultation document on registration and licensing - lists the classes of registration the Board designates, including Certifying Gasfitter, Gasfitter and Restricted Gasfitter.
- Who must comply - WorkSafe's page on which gas installation work counts as gasfitting and who is authorised to carry it out.
- Gas Safety Certificate (GSC) - covers when a gas safety certificate must be issued after gasfitting work.
- Getting gas work done - covers certificate of compliance obligations and the Electricity and Gas High-risk Database.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching, created by Greg Allan, starts from the gasfitter's own job and finance data through the Trade Business Intelligence, not from a description of the business. For a question about registration and licensing, the approach looks first at gross profit margin by job type, compliance certificates, pressure tests, leak detection, LPG and natural gas installs, to see whether the licence to charge is actually landing as profit once labour and materials are properly booked against each job.
Often what looks like a licensing or pricing problem is really a booking problem further upstream. The how, the systems and the agents built to fix it, is worked through inside the Academy, with members, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member and the Academy is for gasfitters who are open minded, innovative and willing to share what they learn.
