Queensland rules · Rockhampton & Central Queensland

Warranties on concrete work in Queensland, and what to do if your slab fails

Three separate things cover your slab and they are not the same. The contractor’s written workmanship warranty is a contract term, commonly 5 to 7 years on the structure. Your consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law cannot be excluded and have no fixed expiry. And the QBCC framework requires a licence for building work over $3,300 and can generally deal with a structural defect for up to 6 years and 6 months after completion. Start with a written defect notice, not a phone argument.

Get a quote with the warranty in writing How to choose a concreter

Most people only look up the warranty after something has gone wrong, which is the worst possible time, because by then the paperwork that would have settled it in a week either exists or it does not. This page sets out who covers what on a concrete job in Queensland, how long each cover runs, the escalation steps in the order they actually work, the difference between a defect and fair wear on a slab, and the documents to keep. It is written for Rockhampton conditions, where ground movement on reactive clay is the single most argued about cause of cracking.

Who covers what on a Queensland concrete job

Cover	Who provides it	How long	What it actually covers	What it does not
The concrete itself	The ready mix supplier, through your contractor	Judged on the 28 day strength result for that delivery	That the mix delivered was the mix specified: strength grade, slump and aggregate, supplied to AS 1379.	Anything done to it after it leaves the chute, including water added on site, placing, finishing and curing.
Products: sealers, oxides, membranes	The product manufacturer	Whatever the data sheet says, commonly 1 to 10 years	Premature product failure when the product was applied exactly as the data sheet requires.	Normal wear in the wheel tracks, UV fade past the stated limit, or any application that departed from the data sheet.
Workmanship warranty	Your contractor, as a term of the contract	Commonly 5 to 7 years structural, 12 months on finish items. Get it in writing.	Base preparation, steel placement and cover, thickness, joint layout and timing, falls, finish and curing.	Fair wear, damage you or a third party caused, or ground movement beyond what the design allowed for.
Consumer guarantees, Australian Consumer Law	The contractor, by law. Cannot be contracted out of.	No fixed expiry. Measured against what is reasonable for the price and the work.	Services supplied with due care and skill, fit for the purpose you made known, delivered in a reasonable time.	Problems you were told about and accepted, or a result you asked for against advice.
QBCC licensing	Queensland Building and Construction Commission	Applies to building work over $3,300, checked free on the online register	That the person doing the work is licensed for that class of work and is inside the regulatory system at all.	Unlicensed operators. If they are not licensed, most of the protections below never start.
Queensland home warranty insurance scheme	QBCC, premium paid by the contractor and passed on	Set periods for structural and non structural loss under the scheme terms	Insurable residential construction work above the same dollar threshold, for non completion and defined defective work.	Work that is not insurable under the scheme. A stand alone path or driveway is often outside it, so confirm on the quote rather than assume.
QBCC direction to rectify	QBCC, on your complaint	Generally up to 6 years 6 months after completion for a structural defect, 12 months for non structural	Defective building work by a licensed contractor, with a formal direction to come back and fix it.	Pure contract and price disputes, and complaints lodged long after you first noticed the problem.

A plain English summary, not legal advice. Dollar thresholds and time periods are set by Queensland legislation and by the QBCC and they do get amended, so confirm the current figures on the QBCC website before you rely on them. Where we are not certain of a number we have described the requirement instead of inventing one.

The escalation steps, in the order that actually works

Skipping a step almost always costs you time. The tribunal will ask what you did first, and a contractor who was never given a clear written chance to fix the work is in a much better position than one who was.

Step	What you do	Timeframe	Typical cost
1. Record it	Photograph the defect with a tape measure in the shot, in daylight, from three distances. Note the date you first saw it.	Same day you notice it	Nothing
2. Written defect notice	Email the contractor with the defect described, the photos attached, and a request to inspect. Ask for a response within 14 days.	Within days of noticing	Nothing
3. Inspection and written plan	Meet on site. Get the outcome in writing: what will be done, by when, and at whose cost.	Within 14 to 28 days	Nothing
4. Independent expert report	If the cause is disputed, engage a consulting structural engineer to inspect and report on cause and remedy.	1 to 3 weeks to get a report	$800 to $2,500
5. QBCC complaint	Lodge a complaint about defective building work with the QBCC, attaching your notice, the photos and any report.	Within 12 months of noticing. Structural generally up to 6 years 6 months from completion.	No lodgement fee
6. QBCC inspection and direction	A QBCC inspector attends, assesses against the Standards and Tolerances Guide, and can direct the contractor to rectify.	Weeks to a few months, depending on load	Nothing
7. QCAT	A building dispute goes to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, normally only after the QBCC process has run.	Months. Set your expectations accordingly.	Filing fee scaled to the amount in dispute

Want the warranty on the quote before you sign?

Ask us for it. Every quote we issue names the slab thickness, the MPa, the mesh code, the base depth, the curing method and the warranty period, so there is nothing to argue about later.

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Defect or fair wear: how a slab is actually judged

This is where most Rockhampton disputes live, because concrete cracks and people reasonably assume a crack means someone did something wrong. The document that settles it in Queensland is the QBCC Standards and Tolerances Guide, which sets out the measurable limits and the time periods within which each item is treated as a defect. It is free to download and it is worth ten minutes of your time before you write anything to anybody. We are not going to quote a millimetre figure from memory here: get the current edition and look up the item you care about.

Normally fair wear, or normal behaviour of concrete

Fine shrinkage cracking with no step and no widening, appearing in the first weeks.
Surface crazing, the fine map pattern you see mostly when the slab is drying out.
Colour variation between two pours, or between one truck and the next, on a coloured or exposed finish.
Efflorescence, the white bloom that comes out of a new slab for the first few months and then stops.
Sealer wearing thin in the wheel tracks after 2 to 4 years, which is a maintenance item and not a defect.
Tyre marks, oil staining and general grime.

Normally a defect worth pursuing

A crack with vertical displacement, where one side sits higher than the other.
A crack that is still opening month after month, or that you can see moisture tracking through.
A section that rocks, drums or sinks under load.
A surface that keeps dusting or crumbling, which usually means water was added at the chute or curing never happened.
Exposed mesh, or steel rusting through the surface, which means cover was wrong.
Water falling back toward the house, or ponding that does not drain after rain.
No control joints, or joints cut so late they did nothing.

On reactive black soil the argument is almost always about cause: was the slab under designed, or did the ground do something outside what any design would have allowed for. That is exactly why the soil test and the engineered design matter so much here, and why we will not pour a structural slab without them. Read slab prep on reactive soil for what a correct design looks like, and when to worry about concrete cracks for how to read the crack you are looking at. If the damage came from an event rather than the build, our page on whether insurance covers a cracked slab is the one you want.

The documents that decide the argument

Keep these in one folder, digital is fine, from the day you accept the quote. In every dispute we have seen resolved quickly, the homeowner had them.

The signed quote or contract naming slab thickness, MPa, mesh code, base depth and material, joint layout, falls, finish and curing method. A scope that says “concrete driveway, steel reinforced” is unenforceable in any useful sense because there is nothing to measure it against.
The contractor’s QBCC licence number, checked on the free online register before work started, plus a screenshot of what it said that day.
The certificate of currency for public liability insurance, which is a separate thing from any warranty and covers damage to your property during the work.
Every concrete delivery docket. These show the mix, the strength grade, the slump, the batch and discharge times and any water added on site. If a strength argument ever starts, this is the page that wins or loses it, and most homeowners never ask for a copy.
The soil test and the engineer’s slab design, plus the site classification under AS 2870.
The certifier’s approval and final certificate where the work needed one. Our page on council approval for concreting covers when that applies.
Your own photos taken before the pour, showing the base, the membrane, the mesh and the bar chairs. Two minutes on your phone, and they are the only record of what is now permanently buried.
Every variation in writing, and the final invoice with the ABN on it.

What a defect notice should say

Short, factual, dated, and sent by email so it is timestamped. Include the property address and the quote reference, a plain description of the defect and where it is, the date you first noticed it, photographs with a tape measure in the frame, the part of the agreed scope you say has not been met, what you want done about it, and a reasonable deadline to respond, which for a first notice is normally 14 days. Ask for rectification rather than money: under both the contract and the consumer guarantees the contractor usually has the right to fix defective work, and demanding cash first weakens your position rather than strengthening it. Leave out the adjectives entirely. A notice that reads like a report gets a site visit. One that reads like an argument gets a lawyer.

The honest part: most of this never gets used

Nearly every dispute we have ever been asked to comment on traces back to the same root cause, and it is not bad concrete. It is a scope that was never written down. The homeowner thought the price included the crossover, or an apron, or removal of the old slab, or a sealed finish. The concreter thought it did not. Nine months later a crack appears and the argument that starts is really the old argument in a new coat.

So the most valuable thing on this page is not the escalation table, it is this: make the quote specific before you sign it. Thickness, MPa, mesh code, base depth, joint spacing, which way the water falls, how it will be cured and for how long, what is excluded, and the warranty period in years. If a contractor will not put those on a page, that is your answer, and it is a much cheaper answer than the QBCC process.

We will also say plainly what we do not warrant. We do not warrant hairline shrinkage cracking, because it is normal in every slab ever poured. We do not warrant colour consistency between separate pours on a coloured or exposed finish, because the mix, the weather and the wash back time all move it. We do not warrant a sealer for longer than the manufacturer does. And we do not warrant a slab against ground movement beyond the classification the soil test returned, which is the whole reason we insist on the test. Everything else, we come back and fix.

If you are lining up quotes now, our guide on how to choose a concreter in Rockhampton has the licence and insurance questions, the budget shed slab page shows what the cheap tier actually leaves out, and new build concreting covers how the slab fits into a build contract.

Warranty and defect questions

How long is a concrete slab under warranty in Queensland?

Three clocks run at once. A contractor workmanship warranty is a contract term and is commonly 5 to 7 years on the structure and 12 months on finish items. Your consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law have no fixed expiry and are judged on what is reasonable for the price and the nature of the work, which for a slab is measured in decades. The QBCC can generally deal with a structural defect up to 6 years and 6 months after the work was completed and a non structural defect up to 12 months, and in both cases it expects you to complain within 12 months of noticing the problem.

Does a concreter need a QBCC licence in Rockhampton?

Yes for anything meaningful. In Queensland, building work valued over $3,300 including materials and labour must be carried out by a QBCC licensed contractor. Almost every slab, driveway or path job clears that figure, so an unlicensed cash price is not a cheaper version of the same job, it is a job with no statutory insurance behind it. You can check a licence free on the QBCC online register before you sign anything.

Is a hairline crack in my new driveway a defect?

Usually not. Fine shrinkage cracking with no step, no widening and no water passing through is normal in concrete and appears in the first weeks. What is not normal is a crack with vertical displacement, a crack that keeps opening month after month, a section that rocks under load, a dusty surface that keeps shedding, or water running back toward the house. The QBCC Standards and Tolerances Guide sets the actual millimetre limits and time windows, and it is free to download.

What should a defect notice to my concreter actually say?

Keep it factual and short. Date, address, the quote or contract reference, exactly what the defect is and where, when you first noticed it, a photo with a tape measure in it, which part of the agreed scope you say it breaches, what you want done, and a reasonable deadline to respond, which is normally 14 days. Send it by email so it is timestamped. Do not include adjectives, threats or a demand for money before the contractor has been given the chance to fix the work.

What documents should I keep after a concrete job?

The signed quote with the slab thickness, MPa, mesh code, base depth and curing method on it, the contractor QBCC licence number, the certificate of currency for public liability, the concrete delivery dockets, the soil test and engineer design, the certifier approval, your own timestamped photos taken before the pour, every variation in writing, and the final invoice. The delivery dockets are the single most useful page if a strength argument ever starts, because they show the mix, the slump and any water added on site.

What does it cost to escalate a concrete dispute in Queensland?

The first three steps cost nothing: photographs, a written defect notice, and a QBCC complaint, which carries no lodgement fee. An independent report from a consulting engineer, which you will want if the argument becomes technical, runs about $800 to $2,500 in Central Queensland. Only after the QBCC process does a building dispute normally go to QCAT, which does charge a filing fee that varies with the amount in dispute.

Get a price

Get a quote with the specification and the warranty on it

Send the details and we will come out for a free measure and email a fixed written quote that names the thickness, the MPa, the mesh, the curing and the warranty period, usually within a few days.

Already have a slab you think is defective?

Send photos with your enquiry and we will tell you honestly whether it looks like normal shrinkage or something worth pursuing, before you spend money on a report. We cover Rockhampton, Gracemere, Yeppoon, Parkhurst and Mount Morgan.

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