AS/NZS 3000 electrical plan: what your drawing should show

What AS/NZS 3000 actually is

AS/NZS 3000, known as the Wiring Rules, is the joint Australian and New Zealand standard for electrical installations, published by Standards Australia and Standards New Zealand. The current edition is AS/NZS 3000:2018, with amendments.

In Australia, each state and territory adopts it through its electrical safety legislation, and your electricity distributor adds service and installation rules for the connection, the metering and the main switchboard — the NSW Service and Installation Rules, for example.

Although it is a joint standard, several clauses are marked Australia only or New Zealand only. They matter as soon as you plan RCDs, cooking appliances or an EV charger.

What the drawing should show

An electrician quoting from a vague sketch will price defensively, and the variations will arrive later. A drawing that answers the following six questions removes most of that risk.

Typical final subcircuits in a an Australian home

These are the arrangements you will see on most home jobs. Ratings and cable sizes below are common starting points — the actual design depends on the load, the cable route, grouping, insulation and the length of the run, which is the electrician's calculation under AS/NZS 3008, not a lookup.

RCD and RCBO protection

In Australia, additional protection by a 30 mA RCD is required on every final subcircuit of a home — power, lighting, cooktop, oven, water heater and air conditioning — with the RCD installed at the switchboard where the circuit starts (clause 2.6.3.2.2).

Clause 2.6.2.4 then shapes the switchboard on both sides of the Tasman: in a home, no more than three final subcircuits on any one RCD, at least two RCDs as soon as there is more than one circuit, and lighting circuits shared between RCDs so that one trip does not leave the house in the dark.

A board with several RCDs is the cheaper arrangement; a full RCBO board gives each circuit its own combined overcurrent and residual-current device, so a fault isolates a single circuit. State which you want before quotes come in. Arc fault detection devices are not required by AS/NZS 3000 in Australia (clause 2.9.6).

Bathrooms and other special locations

Section 6 of AS/NZS 3000 divides bathrooms, showers and other fixed water containers into zones 0 to 3measured from the bath or shower, and restricts what may be installed in each, along with the IP rating equipment must achieve. Power points are not allowed in zones 0 and 1, and are restricted in zone 2 — a shaver outlet, for example.

Cooktops have their own clearance: no power point or switch within 150 mm of the edge of the cooking surface, up to the rangehood or 2.5 m (clause 4.7.3). Outdoor power points need IP33 at least where they are exposed to the weather (clause 4.1.3). Mark these areas clearly on the plan: they change the positions, the equipment and often the price.

Certification and paperwork

In Australia, the licensed electrician issues a certificate of compliancefor the completed work under the rules of your state or territory — a Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work (CCEW) in New South Wales, for example — and the distributor's rules apply to the connection.

Keep the certificate with the property documents: it is what a buyer or insurer will ask for.

Drawing the layout in Planelico

Planelico works on top of the PDF you already have. You are not redrawing the building — you are annotating it with the electrical layout, then exporting something an electrician can price.

1. 1

   Import your floor plan as a PDF

   An architect’s or builder’s drawing, a real-estate plan or a clean scan. It becomes a background layer you annotate without altering the original.

2. 2

   Place fittings room by room

   Drag power points, switches, lighting points, data outlets and appliance supplies onto the plan, using the IEC 60617 symbol set.

3. 3

   Group them into circuits

   Let Planelico propose the circuits and the switchboard, or assign each fitting yourself, so the drawing shows the intended circuit split.

4. 4

   Mark the special locations

   Draw zones for bathrooms, shower rooms and outdoor areas so the constraints are visible at a glance.

5. 5

   Export the PDF for pricing

   A clean document with legend, per-room summary and switchboard design pack — the thing an electrician can actually quote from.

The symbol library follows IEC 60617, the international set the Australian and New Zealand drawing conventions are based on. See the electrical symbols reference, the switchboard and RCD layout guide, or the guide to preparing a plan for a quote.

Frequently asked questions