Home Design Guides: Kitchen, Plumbing

A gas leak is serious business - and is extremely dangerous anywhere in your home. Find out what steps to take if you suspect there is a gas leak inside your home.

Depending on the work you need done, you may need to give a little thought to who's going to do plumbing or gasfitting work in your home. Read our guide on how to choose the right plumber.

Most of the time, if a tap in your home is leaky, dripping or hard to close it's the result of a broken washer. While it's possible that your leaking tap's a 'washerless' tap (i.e. one with a ball, cartridge or ceramic disc mechanism - see the 'Types of taps' article linked below), it's a lot less likely that these taps will be leaking like this. You can usually tell if you have a ceramic disc type tap because it'll only need a quarter or half turn to fully open the tap.

In most plumbing setups, it takes a while for hot water to reach the hot tap when it's turned on. Cold water diverters recycle the cold water which would otherwise pour down the drain in this time.

Also called drains and plugholes, wastes are the grills through which water is drained as it leaves your bathroom. Find out what variations exist for wastes.

Taps can come in matching bathroom sets, but can also be mixed and matched to great effect.

Blocked drains in your kitchen are no fun - but thankfully they're not too difficult to deal with. Read our guide on how to unblock a drain and save yourself from a watery disaster.

Water-producing bathroom fittings in Australia need to comply with basic water-efficiency standards. As a part of the WELS scheme, they are rated and given a label that shows how efficient they are.

The WaterMark certification label signifies that a plumbing product complies with certain quality and performance standards.

Regulations in Australia restrict where you're able to position power points in relation to sinks and taps. Find out what the rules say, and how far your power points will need to be from your kitchen sink.

There are special laws and regulations in place in Australia that control to how gas appliances should be chosen, who can install them and who can maintain them. Here's what you need to know.

If you're planning on installing a gas cooktop or other gas kitchen appliance, it's important that it's installed properly, and serviced regularly by a qualified gasfitter. Here's what to look for.

There are several regulations in Australia that affect how you buy plumbing products, how they need to be positioned in relation to other parts of your kitchen, and how they need to be installed.