New Zealand Building Code tools

For architects, architectural designers and technicians, building consent officers and students. Put your design in and get the Building Code's answer back: drains sized, bracing checked, R-values worked out, every document's limit for a door or stair on one page. Each number names its clause and edition, ready for the consent drawings and the council's questions.

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Reads H1/AS1 · NZS 4214 · E3/AS1

Construction R-value

Work out the R-value of a roof, wall or floor from its layers, then check the whole house against the reference building.

Calculates

600C/AS1760D1/AS1 · NZS 4121 · C/AS2810Kāinga Ora · LifemarkClear opening width

Reads every document at once

Dimensions

Every document's limit for the door, stair or room you are drawing, side by side, with the one that binds marked.

Compares every document

First floorGround floorVentStackDrainGully trapConnection

Reads G13/AS1 · AS/NZS 3500.2

Drainage design

Put the fixtures on your own floor plans and get the sanitary plumbing and drains sized, vented and drawn. Your plans stay in this browser.

Designs from your plans

ShelteredExposed45°1234657810911121314Type 304 stainless1516H5H3.2H1.2H3.2

Reads B2/AS1 · NZS 3604 · NZS 3602 · E2/AS1

Durability and compatibility

Find the treatment each timber part of a house needs, the steel that fixes it in the site's exposure zone, and which materials may touch.

Schedules by part and zone

Reads NZS 3604 · Building Product Specifications

NZS 3604 Bracing

Draw the house or trace your own floor plan, put any maker's bracing on its lines, and see the demand met line by line, with the roof's braces counted.

Calculates from your plans

Reads NZS 3604

Subfloor framing

Lay a timber floor out on its plan and get the joist, bearer and footing sizes, with the anchor and braced piles that brace it.

Lays out from your plans

Standards

The standards the Building Code's documents cite, each figure with its clause.

  1. AS/NZS2025

    Sanitary Plumbing and Drainage

    Its four venting systems and the sizes each is designed to, and why a design to the 2025 edition is an alternative solution.

    Tools: Drainage design · Plumb the house

  2. NZS2011

    Timber-framed Buildings

    What NZS 3604 asks of a house's bracing, subfloor, lintels, studs and roof framing, each point with its clause, beside calculators for its bracing and subfloor framing.

    Tools: NZS 3604 Bracing · Subfloor framing · Openings and lintels

  3. NZS2001

    Design for Access and Mobility

    Buildings and associated facilities

    Accessible car parks, routes, toilets and the space each facility needs, by the standard's own sections. Sections 11 and 12 are not in here yet.

    Tool: Dimensions

Building Act

What the Act decides before any clause of the Code: whether the work needs a consent at all.

Building Code

What each clause asks, what the drawings show, and where the documents part.

    1. B2/AS13rd Edition
      Durability

      Durability provisions for building elements

      How long each building element has to last, by element and situation, and where E2/AS1 gives a hidden element a different period.

      Tool: Durability and compatibility
    1. C/AS12nd Edition Amendment 1
      Protection from Fire

      Protection from fire for buildings with sleeping (residential) and outbuildings (risk group SH)

      Whether a residential design is within the scope of C/AS1, and the requirements of Parts 2 to 7 that follow.

      Tool: Dimensions
    1. D1/AS12nd Edition Amendment 6
      Access Routes

      Design a stair from its floor-to-floor height or a ramp from its rise, then check doors, handrails, headroom and slip.

      Tool: Dimensions
    1. E1/AS11st Edition Amendment 12
      Surface Water

      Size gutters, downpipes and drains for the site's rainfall intensity, with sump types and drain access.

    2. E2/AS14th Edition
      External Moisture

      External moisture provisions for timber-framed buildings up to 10 m in height

      Score each elevation's weathertightness risk, then the claddings and flashings that score allows. 9.4 to 9.9 and Part 10 are not in here yet.

      Tools: Durability and compatibility · Dimensions
    3. E3/AS12nd Edition Amendment 7
      Internal Moisture

      What wet areas put on the drawings: the finishes E3 accepts, containment, a floor waste and the shower.

      Tool: Dimensions
    1. F4/AS13rd Edition Amendment 2
      Safety from Falling

      Check a barrier against Table 1 and an opening window against 2.1, then every requirement of F4/AS1.

      Tool: Dimensions
    1. G1/AS12nd Edition Amendment 6
      Personal Hygiene

      Compliance Document for New Zealand Building Code Clause G1

      How many WC pans, urinals, basins, baths and showers a building needs by Tables 1 to 4, and which must be accessible.

      Tool: Dimensions
    2. G2/AS11st Edition Amendment 3
      Laundering

      Check one laundry against Figure 1: the tub, the washing machine and the clear floor in front of them.

      Tool: Dimensions
    3. G3/AS11st Edition Amendment 2
      Food Preparation and Prevention of Contamination

      Check one kitchen against Figure 1: the bench run, the clear space, the sink and the food store.

      Tool: Dimensions
    4. G4/AS15th Edition
      Ventilation

      Ventilation of buildings

      Net openable area, extract flowrates and trickle ventilators room by room, then gas appliance vents. A wall terminal's clearances are AS/NZS 5601.1's and are not worked out.

      Tool: Dimensions
    5. G7/AS1, AS22nd Edition
      Natural Light

      Natural Light for simple buildings up to three storeys excluding those with borrowed daylight

      Each habitable room against both: G7/AS1's glazing, glass and window head, and G7/AS2's deepest room for its glazing, overhang and the buildings opposite.

      Tool: Dimensions
    6. G11/AS11st Edition Amendment 6
      Gas as an Energy Source

      Where LPG cylinders can stand: the clearances to openings, drains and ignition sources, and the path from the truck.

      Tool: Dimensions
    7. G12/AS13rd Edition Amendment 14
      Water Supplies

      Check one water heater: its temperatures, relief valve drain, safe tray and seismic straps.

      Tool: Dimensions
    8. G13/AS1, AS22nd Edition Amendment 10
      Foul Water

      Which document covers the plumbing and which the drains, the ways to comply, and which of five venting systems suits the building.

      Tools: Drainage design · Plumb the house · Dimensions
    1. H1/AS16th Edition
      Energy Efficiency

      Energy efficiency for all housing, and buildings up to 300 m²

      What H1/AS1 asks of a building's thermal envelope, what the consent drawings show for it, and how it changes NZS 4214's method.

      Tool: Construction R-value