Pool fence legislation in QLD
When selling a house in QLD, a vendor must possess a certificate of compliance (costing $250) for his pool fence. I have just obtained one of these, but was unprepared for the ludicrous strictness with which the guidelines are enforced.
For instance, the test used by the inspector for the self-closing gate is that it should close itself even if the gate is opened only by one finger's width. My gate easily closed itself if opened 5 cm, but struggled to do so when opened only a finger's width. I think the magnetic catch in my gate may have lost some of its strength; however, I was able to enable it to pass easily by attaching a 1/4" diameter rare-earth magnet to boost the strength of the magnetic catch.
In order for my fence to be certified, I had to attach a 5 m length of metal flywire to the outside of the fence in one corner, because the ground level INSIDE the fence in that part was only 1.05 m below the top of the fence rather than the mandatory 1.2 m.
Luckily I had the flywire to hand, and was able to fit it whilst the inspector waited; otherwise, I would have had to pay an extra $110 for a re-inpection.
Realistically, neither of of the 'defects' the inspector found were likely to make it feasible for a child to penetrate my pool fence, but that would not have dissuaded her from failing my fence, if I had not had the means to remedy them on the spot.
Whilst I don't object to pool fence inspections being mandatory, I would suggest to anyone who is in the position of requiring a certificate of compliance that they should assume that the inspector will fail a fence which by any reasonable assessment is childproof, if he can find the slightest infringement of the guidelines. In my view, the guidelines should be just that - guidelines, rather than inflexible rules which go far beyond reasonable measures to make pool fences childproof.
Rocker
