Quick answer
In most Te Atatū bungalows the kitchen cannot get bigger until the laundry leaves the room, and where the laundry can go is settled by drainage, not by taste. There are three honest options: shut it behind a cupboard door in the same room, move it into the bathroom, or push it out into the garage or an external cupboard. The one that wins is almost always whichever keeps the tub and the machine closest to the gully trap already sitting outside your back door, because new pipe runs, new falls and new venting are what turn a tidy job into an expensive one. Moving fixtures inside an existing house is often exempt from building consent under Schedule 1 of the Building Act — but only if the total number of sanitary fixtures does not increase and an authorised plumber does the work.
Key points
- Te Atatū Peninsula and Te Atatū South were built out fast from the 1950s onward, and the low-cost plans of that era put the kitchen, the laundry and the back door in one room on purpose, because they all shared a single gully trap.
- The acceptable solution for Building Code clause G13 requires a house to have at least one gully trap positioned so the top of the dish sits no less than 150 mm below the overflow level of the lowest fixture it serves, kept in a visible position, and installed so surcharge cannot enter under the building — which is exactly why it lives outside your back door.
- Moving an existing laundry tub within the house is often exempt from building consent, provided the total number of sanitary fixtures in the building does not increase, no specified system is affected, and an authorised plumber carries out the work.
- Building a detached laundry shed does not dodge consent: the Schedule 1 exemptions for small detached buildings explicitly exclude anything containing sanitary facilities or potable water storage.
- The number that decides your budget is the pipe run — G13's acceptable solution pushes individual fixture discharge pipes over 3.5 m into venting territory, and branch drains over 10 m need an open vent.
Every wet fixture in the house runs to one gully trap.
Stand in the kitchen of a Te Atatū Peninsula three-bedroom and you can usually touch the whole problem without moving your feet. Bench on your left. Washing machine humming under the far end of it. Laundry tub with a chipped enamel lip beside that. And the back door — the one everybody in the house actually uses, the one the dog knows — swinging into the two square metres you had earmarked for a pantry. Rooms like this are typically a bit over three metres wide. Four working things want that space and only three can have it.
So people ring us and ask for a bigger kitchen, and the honest first answer is that the kitchen cannot grow until the laundry moves. That is a plumbing question wearing a design costume, which is why this article leans on the Building Code more than a design piece normally would. Treat the clause references as the shape of the rules rather than advice for your specific house — your plumber, your drainlayer, your LBP and Auckland Council get the final say, and they should get it before anyone orders cabinets. Everything below assumes a standalone bungalow on its own title; cross-lease and unit-title owners have a separate conversation to have with their co-owners or body corporate first.
Why the kitchen, the laundry and the back door ended up in one room
Te Atatū was farmland and brickworks until the Northwestern Motorway went through in the 1950s and turned the peninsula into commuter land. Between 1945 and 1960 it was the second fastest-growing area in Auckland, and it picked up the nickname Nappy Valley for the obvious reason. Low and medium-cost housing kept going up through the 1960s and 1970s, much of it by group builders working to repeatable plans, and most of the residential stock on the Peninsula and in Te Atatū South dates from that 1960s push. Weatherboard and brick, standard sections, a clothesline out the back.
The kitchen-laundry-back-door room was not laziness. It was arithmetic. Every wet fixture in a house has to discharge to the foul drain, and the acceptable solution for Building Code clause G13 requires a house to be provided with at least one gully trap that sits in a visible position, with the top of the dish no less than 150 mm below the overflow level of the lowest sanitary fixture it serves, installed so that surcharge cannot enter into or under the building. That last condition is the whole story: the gully trap has to be outside, on the ground, where you can see it. So the cheapest possible house puts the sink, the tub and the machine on the same external wall, a metre or two from that one trap, and puts the back door there too because that is the service side of the section — bins, clothesline, path to the street. One trap, one short run of pipe, one door. Multiply by a few thousand houses and you get Te Atatū.
Sixty years on, the arithmetic hasn't changed but the way we live has. That room now has to hold a dishwasher nobody planned for, a fridge twice the size, a rangehood, and a family that eats in it. The layout you choose is downstream of one question: how far is the water allowed to travel?
The number that decides everything is the pipe run
Ask three people what moving a laundry costs and you will get three answers, because they are all quietly guessing at different pipe runs. Water goes downhill and only downhill. Once you push a fixture far enough from the trap, or run out of fall trying to get there, the acceptable solution starts asking for venting, and venting means opening things up. The thresholds worth knowing before you fall in love with a plan:
| Trigger | What G13's acceptable solution asks for | What it means for your laundry |
|---|---|---|
| Fixture discharge pipe over 3.5 m | Individual fixture discharge pipes over 3.5 m to a gully trap need venting — an open vent or an air admittance valve | Shifting the tub across the room is usually simple. Shifting it across the house adds vent work. |
| Branch drain over 10 m | Branch drains connected to a vented drain that exceed 10 m need venting with an open vent | A run to the far side of the house stops being a re-plumb and becomes a drainage job. |
| Gradient flatter than 1:60 | Soil fixtures on a branch and vented drain laid at less than 1:60 need venting | Flat sections — much of the Peninsula — burn through your available fall fast. |
| 32 mm pipe dropping more than 1.5 m | Must be vented with a 32 mm vent pipe or an air admittance valve | Relevant where the floor sits high off the ground on timber piles. |
| A new connection to the public drain | Sits outside the minor-alteration exemption entirely | Consent territory, and a conversation with the network utility operator. |
Option one: shut it behind a door
The European laundry. The machine stays exactly where it is, or moves a metre, and you build a cupboard around it with a bifold or a cavity slider across the front. Nothing new gets drained. Nothing gets vented. It is the cheapest of the three by a wide margin and it is the option most Te Atatū owners should take seriously before they take on the other two.
What you give up is real. A full-size tub usually goes, replaced by a deep sink or nothing at all, and you find out fast whether anybody in the house actually soaked things in it. The cupboard eats 700-odd millimetres of run that could have been drawers. And you have created a small sealed room with a heat-and-steam appliance in it, which brings its own rule: under G4's acceptable solution, kitchens, bathrooms, toilets and laundries that do not have an external wall must be mechanically ventilated. A cupboard in the middle of a wall has no external wall. It needs a fan, and the fan needs somewhere to go. Doors that are louvred or undercut help the air move, but they do not remove the moisture from the house.
Done properly it disappears, and the rest of the room reads as a kitchen instead of a utility area. In a room that was already tight, the same principles that make a small kitchen feel bigger apply — unbroken bench, one tall bank of storage, nothing white-goods-shaped in your eyeline.
Option two: move it into the bathroom
In a lot of these plans the bathroom is on the same wet wall, sometimes backing directly onto the kitchen. That is not a coincidence either — same trap, same logic. Which makes the bathroom the shortest honest move for a laundry: the drainage is already there, the floor is already built to get wet, and there is already an extract fan in the ceiling.
Here is the part almost nobody gets told. The Schedule 1 exemption for altering existing sanitary plumbing turns on a counting test: the total number of sanitary fixtures in the building must not increase, and the alteration must not modify or affect any specified system. Government guidance for that exemption uses, as its worked example, an existing laundry tub in a dwelling being moved to a new location within the adjacent kitchen. Take the tub out of the kitchen and put a tub in the bathroom and your count is unchanged. Keep the kitchen tub because it might be handy and add a second one in the bathroom, and your count has gone up — and the job you were told was exempt is not exempt any more. The work also has to be done by an authorised person: a registered certifying plumber, or someone working under one's supervision, with the drainlayer's equivalent for drainage. That is the national position rather than a promise about your address, so confirm the specific job with Auckland Council before you commit.
The cost of this option is domestic rather than financial. A 1960s bathroom is not large, and giving a quarter of it to a washing machine means someone is folding towels where someone else wants to shower at half past seven. Families with teenagers should think hard. Families with a second toilet should think less hard.
Option three: push it outside
This is the one people bring up last and assume is easiest — bolt a cupboard to the outside of the house, or stick a little shed out the back, and be done. It is usually the most expensive of the three, and here is the verified reason why.
The Schedule 1 exemptions for small detached buildings — the one for buildings up to 10 m², and the one for 10 to 30 m² where a Licensed Building Practitioner carries out or supervises the design and construction — both carry the same condition: the building must not contain sanitary facilities or facilities for the storage of potable water. A laundry is sanitary facilities. So the shed you thought you could put up without consent stops being exempt the moment you put a tub in it. Those exemptions also require the building to sit more than a metre from any residential building or legal boundary, which on a standard Te Atatū section quietly rules out the side strip where you were going to put it.
An external cupboard fixed to the weatherboards is a different animal again, because you are now cutting into the building envelope. New cladding, new flashings, a new opening, and weathertightness to answer for. That is building work on the house, not a bit of joinery, and it should be priced and consented as such. Where this option genuinely does work is when you already have an enclosed space under the existing roof — an attached garage, a closed-in lean-to — that the laundry can move into. No new envelope, no new structure, and the plumbing exemption may still be in play. The whole fork comes down to whether you are building something new or using something that is already there.
Ventilation, which is where these rooms actually get failed
G4's acceptable solution treats kitchens, bathrooms, toilets and laundries as one family of spaces, and the requirement for each with an external wall is the same: vent to the outside, either through windows or openings with a net openable area of no less than 5% of the floor area, or through high-level trickle ventilators, with less than six metres between the external wall and the opposing wall. Without an external wall, they must be mechanically ventilated.
Two details matter in a room doing double duty. First, a laundry is not a habitable space under the Code — the definition specifically excludes bathrooms, laundries, water closets, pantries, corridors and clothes-drying rooms. It doesn't get the amenity expectations of a living room. But the moisture is still real and still has to leave. Second, the guidance is blunt that natural ventilation on its own is not adequate to remove moisture generated from cooktops, showers and baths: spaces containing them must have mechanical extract fans, at a flowrate of not less than 50 L/s for cooktops and 25 L/s for showers and baths, exhausting to the outside. A recirculating rangehood does not exhaust anywhere. It filters and hands the steam straight back to you, which in a room that is also drying laundry is a genuinely poor idea — worth reading our comparison of ducted versus recirculating rangehoods before you let one into the spec.
There is also a quiet rule that catches open-plan conversions: habitable spaces must not be naturally ventilated via an adjacent space that is a bathroom, kitchen, toilet or laundry. You cannot count the lounge as being ventilated through the laundry door. If you are renting the house out, the healthy homes ventilation standard adds its own layer — kitchens and bathrooms need an extractor venting outside, and fans installed in a room with a cooktop after 1 July 2019 need a minimum diameter including ducting of 150 mm or an exhaust capacity of at least 50 L/s. All private rentals have had to comply since 1 July 2025. Landlords should read the healthy homes kitchen requirements properly rather than take a fan's word for it.
The ones who get burnt are the ones who fell in love with a layout before anybody lifted a floorboard. Find the gully trap first. Then draw.
Where the laundry goes decides what the kitchen can be.
What goes wrong
The plan gets drawn from the inside out. A designer produces something lovely with the sink on the island, nobody has looked under the house, and the drainlayer prices it in week three at a number that kills the job. On a 1960s bungalow the drainage should be surveyed before the first sketch, not after the last one.
The fixture count creeps. This is the most common way an exempt job stops being exempt, and it almost always happens through kindness — the old tub stays because someone might want it, a second toilet gets added while the walls are open, an outdoor tap becomes a sink. Every one of those is a decision that should be made deliberately with the exemption conditions in front of you.
The fall runs out and nobody says so until it does. Flat section, shallow subfloor, ambitious run. Ask for the levels early.
The laundry cupboard gets built with no extract. It looks perfect at handover. Two winters later the carcass bottoms have swollen, the door has stopped closing square, and there is black spotting on the back panel. That is not a manufacturing fault and no warranty will cover it, which is worth knowing before you argue about it — our note on what kitchen warranties actually cover is the unglamorous version of this conversation.
The back door gets designed out of existence. Someone puts a tall pantry where the door swings, or a bin drawer in the traffic lane, and the family spends the next decade going the long way round. The back door in these houses is the front door in practice. Respect it.
And the trades hit each other. Plumber, drainlayer, sparky, gib stopper and the kitchen install all want the same room, and if the sequence isn't agreed the whole thing stretches. A single kitchen goes in over five to seven days when the run-up has been done properly, and a fortnight when it hasn't — coordinating the install with your other trades is most of the difference.
What to ask before you sign
- Where is the gully trap, and how many metres of pipe from it to where the tub is going?
- Does the total number of sanitary fixtures in the house change under this plan? By how many, and why?
- Who is the authorised plumber and the drainlayer, and has either of them priced venting or an air admittance valve?
- Is the floor on timber piles or a slab, and has anyone physically been under it or cored it?
- What fall is actually available, and what gradient is the new run being laid at?
- Which extract fan, at what flowrate, ducted to where — and is it ducted outside rather than recirculating?
- If the house is or might be rented, does the kitchen extractor meet the healthy homes ventilation standard?
- Is the price supply and install, one contract and one invoice, plus GST — or is joinery quoted separately from the trades?
- If the drainlayer's opinion changes once the floor is open, who applies for consent and who wears the variation?
Frequently asked questions
Can I move the laundry out of my kitchen without a building consent?
Often, yes. Schedule 1 of the Building Act 2004 includes an exemption for altering existing sanitary plumbing, and the government's own guidance for it uses the example of an existing laundry tub in a dwelling being moved to a new location within the adjacent kitchen. The conditions are that the total number of sanitary fixtures in the building is not increased, no specified system is modified or affected, and the work is carried out by an authorised person — a registered certifying plumber or someone supervised by one. That is the national position, so confirm your particular job with Auckland Council or an LBP before anyone orders cabinets.
Can I put the washing machine and tub in the bathroom instead?
In a 1960s Te Atatū plan the bathroom is often on the same wet wall as the kitchen, which makes it the shortest honest move for a laundry — the drainage, the waterproof floor and the extract fan are already there. The trap to avoid is the fixture count: take the tub out of the kitchen and put one in the bathroom and your total is unchanged, but keep both and you have increased the count and lost the exemption. The real cost is domestic, because a small bathroom shared between a washing machine and a family at 7.30am is a different house to live in. Price both options before you decide.
Do I need an extractor fan in a laundry cupboard?
Almost certainly. Under G4's acceptable solution, kitchens, bathrooms, toilets and laundries that do not have an external wall must be mechanically ventilated, and a cupboard built into the middle of an internal run has no external wall by definition. Louvred doors and undercuts help air move around but they do not remove moisture from the house — they just share it with the kitchen. Size the fan and its ducting with your installer rather than assuming the cheapest one on the shelf will do, and make sure it discharges outside.
Is a detached laundry shed a way around getting consent?
No, and this catches people out. The Schedule 1 exemptions for small detached buildings — both the one for buildings up to 10 m² and the one for 10 to 30 m² with a Licensed Building Practitioner involved — require that the building does not contain sanitary facilities or facilities for the storage of potable water. A laundry is sanitary facilities, so putting a tub in the shed removes the exemption you were relying on. Those exemptions also require more than a metre of clearance to any residential building or legal boundary, which rules out a lot of standard Te Atatū side strips anyway.
What does a combined kitchen and laundry renovation cost in Te Atatū?
The cabinets are the predictable part and the drainage is not, which is why the range is so wide. Leaving the laundry in the room behind a door keeps you in entry-grade territory, in the lower five figures plus GST for supply and install; moving it to the bathroom adds a plumber, a drainlayer and possibly venting, and pushes a mid-range job comfortably into the mid five figures; building new structure outside adds consent, cladding and programme, and goes well past that. Send us the room and we will price it properly — a rough scope is enough to start, and drawings sharpen it.
Send us the room, not the dream
We have been doing this for 23 years out of our own workshop in East Tamaki, and we turn out ten-plus kitchens a week — a good number of them in west Auckland houses built to exactly the plans described above. That volume is why we can look at a Te Atatū kitchen-laundry and tell you which of the three options your house will actually allow, rather than which one looks best on a mood board. There is no showroom to pay for, so what you get is trade pricing, and because we supply and install under one contract there is one invoice and nobody to point at when something needs sorting.
Send through the address, a couple of photos of the room including the back door and whatever is outside it, and a rough idea of what you want the space to do. We will come back inside 24 hours with a trade-priced number, plus GST, and an honest read on whether the laundry can move at all. If the answer is that it should stay behind a door and you should spend the difference on the kitchen, we will say that too — it is a better outcome than a beautiful plan that dies when the drainlayer arrives. If you want to understand the shape of the number before you call, our breakdown of what actually sits inside a kitchen quote is the place to start.