Campervan gas certification is not paperwork you sort out at the end

Campervan gas certification is not a form you fill in when the build is finished. Gas work in a camper is licensed work in every state, and Queensland won’t let the van change hands without a certified system. Here’s what has to be signed off, and when.

Why does camper gas work need a licensed gasfitter?

Because LP gasfitting is licensed work, and doing it in your own van doesn’t change that. In its May 2023 guidance for recreational vehicles, issued under the Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Act 2017, Building Commission NSW limits the job to licence holders. You need an endorsed contractor’s licence or a supervisor’s certificate covering LP Gasfitting, or you need to be directly supervised by somebody who holds one.

Queensland draws the same line. Business Queensland puts the licence first: before anyone installs, removes, alters, repairs, services, tests or certifies a gas system, they need the right gas work licence or authorisation. Failing to meet the gas safety requirements for a recreational vehicle is an offence.

Energy Safe Victoria is blunt with owners: stay away from gas work yourself, and call a licensed gasfitter for any install, repair or renovation that touches gas. Victoria also ties the paperwork to the person who did the job. Once a gas appliance goes in, the gasfitter has to hand the owner a compliance certificate, and the work that certificate covers carries a six-year warranty. No certificate, no warranty, and nothing to show an inspector or a buyer.

What does AS/NZS 5601.2 actually cover?

AS/NZS 5601.2 is the LP gas standard for caravans and boats, covering gas used for anything other than propulsion, and it governs the whole system rather than the appliances alone. Queensland’s Petroleum and Gas Inspectorate names the 2020 edition as the current safety requirement for these vehicles, and Building Commission NSW expects every recreational vehicle gas installation to meet it.

What catches out an owner-builder is usually the pipe run, not the cooker. Building Commission NSW lists these among the faults it keeps finding:

• Low pressure piping made from something other than fully annealed copper, plus press-fit joints, which aren’t allowed in these builds.
• Gas pipes clipped to the chassis or under the floor sitting closer than 25 millimetres to electrical services beside them.
• A gas refrigerator dropped into an open cavity instead of a sealed recess, letting combustion products into the living space.
• Pipework that isn’t supported often enough along its length.

There’s a labelling requirement too. Business Queensland makes the installer note on the certificate whether the van has an annexe. Where it doesn’t, a warning label goes on, telling the owner to talk to a gasfitter about ventilation before one is added later.

Does the 240V wiring need sign-off as well?

Yes, and the standard behind it changed recently. AS/NZS 3001.2:2022 replaced AS/NZS 3001:2008 and became mandatory on 18 November 2023 at the end of a 12 month transition, applying to electrical work done from that date onwards, according to REDARC. It reaches across wiring, inverters, solar panels and batteries in caravans, motorhomes and camper trailers, so it goes well past the 240V inlet and into the 12V side of your build.

Two battery rules catch a lot of HiAce fitouts. Under the 2022 standard, a lithium battery is only allowed in the living space if it sits inside a sealed box vented outside, or the space it occupies is itself sealed and vented out. A lead-acid box needs two vents, top and bottom. A lithium box needs one vent and a label to say so.

Getting the electrical side wrong is expensive. Energy Safe Victoria lifted the maximum penalty for electrical installation work that doesn’t comply to 240 penalty units for an individual from May 2025, with the same 240 units applying where someone installs unsafe electrical equipment and 1,200 penalty units for a body corporate. At the 2024-25 value of $197.59 a unit, 240 units works out to roughly $47,421, and the regulator resets the unit value each 1 July.

What happens at registration, roadworthy or resale?

Selling is where it bites hardest. Under section 113 of Queensland’s Petroleum and Gas Regulation, a camper can’t move on to a new owner until a licensed person has inspected the gas system and certified it, according to Business Queensland. Elsewhere the requirement sits with the state gas and electrical regulator rather than the roads agency, so check with your own transport authority as well. A vehicle standards inspector and a gas inspector are looking at different things.

One detail is worth knowing before you improvise. Business Queensland says an inspector judges the system against whichever safety standard was in force when the work was actually done, rather than the one current on inspection day. That cuts both ways. Work built properly under an earlier edition isn’t condemned by the current one, but undocumented work has no date and no certificate to prove which edition it was built to.

When should you bring the certifier in?

Before the wall lining goes on. A gasfitter certifying an installation has to see the pipe run, its supports, its clearance from wiring and the appliance recesses, and all of that disappears behind plywood. If the only way to verify the 25 millimetre clearance that Building Commission NSW wants is to pull the lining off, that’s exactly what will happen.

Best for anyone still at the frame stage: book the gasfitter and the electrician for a rough-in visit before you line anything, then a second visit to test, certify and hand over the paperwork. That’s two call-out fees instead of one. Set against stripping a finished fitout back to bare metal and rebuilding it, two call-outs is the cheap version.

The other reason to do it properly is that the certificate is the only part of the work that travels with the van. Energy Safe Victoria attaches a six-year warranty to certified gas work, Queensland wants a certified system before a sale, and a buyer who asks for paperwork and gets a shrug will either walk away or knock the price down. Treat certification as part of the build, not the last line on the job list.