Written by Chris · Licensed Level 2 ASP Electrician · Licence 397193C · Published 5 November 2026

What Electrical Rules Apply to Wash Down Areas and Commercial Kitchens in Sydney?

What electrical rules apply to wash down areas and commercial kitchens in Sydney? AS/NZS 3000 treats anywhere that gets regularly hosed down or sanitised, including commercial kitchens, cafes, food prep rooms and car wash bays, as a classified zone under Clause 6.7, with its own IP rating requirements for every switch, socket and switchboard inside it. Unlike a bathroom or pool, a switchboard is actually allowed in this zone, but only at a much higher protection rating than most older Sydney fitouts were ever built to.

1. What counts as a sanitisation or wash down area

Clause 6.7 of AS/NZS 3000 applies wherever sanitisation or general hosing down operations are a normal part of how a space is used. The standard specifically calls out food production and processing areas, commercial kitchens and cafes, dairies, and car wash bays as typical examples, alongside agricultural and horticultural premises such as greenhouses and livestock sheds. For a Sydney business, that most commonly means a commercial kitchen, a cafe prep area behind the counter, a butcher or food production room, or a car wash bay rather than a farm shed.

The rule exists because these spaces combine water, often under real pressure, with electrical equipment in daily use, and ordinary household rated fittings are simply not built to survive it.

2. How the hosed down zone is actually measured

The classified zone depends on how the space is cleaned. Where the whole area is sanitised or hosed down, including walls and ceiling, the entire enclosed space becomes the classified zone. Where hosing is limited to the floor and walls, the zone runs from the floor up to a horizontal plane 2.0 m above it, covers every wall within the area, and extends across any part of the ceiling within 1.0 m of a wall. Where hosing is limited to the floor only, the zone is simply the space from the floor up to a horizontal plane 1.0 m above it.

In practice, a full commercial kitchen that gets a complete deep clean is usually treated as a whole room zone, while a car wash bay with hosing confined to vehicle height and the floor often sits in the middle category.

3. IP ratings: IPX5 for standard hosing, IPX6 for high pressure

Electrical equipment installed in the classified zone needs a minimum degree of protection of IPX5 where low or medium pressure hosing is used, rising to IPX6 where high pressure hosing, such as a pressure washer, is the normal cleaning method. This covers every power point, light fitting, isolator and piece of fixed equipment inside the zone, not just the obvious wet areas around sinks and bench washdown stations.

Equipment and wiring in the zone also has to be built from materials genuinely suited to the hosing method, the cleaning chemicals used and the temperature and pressure involved, protected against any moisture that could accumulate inside an enclosure, and installed so it never creates a channel or pocket that lets water track into live parts.

4. The one exception: switchboards are allowed, at IPX6

Every other damp situation in AS/NZS 3000, bathrooms, swimming pools, spas, fountains and saunas, bans switchboards outright from the classified zone. Wash down and sanitisation areas are the one exception. A switchboard can be installed inside a hosed down zone, provided it is built or enclosed to a minimum degree of protection of IPX6. This matters in a commercial kitchen fitout, since it means the distribution board serving kitchen equipment does not necessarily have to be relocated entirely outside the prep area, as long as the enclosure itself is genuinely rated for the hosing regime used in that kitchen.

This single difference is also one of the most commonly missed items in older Sydney kitchens, where a standard indoor rated board was installed years ago and has simply never been checked against the hosing the kitchen actually receives today.

5. What a non compliant kitchen or wash down area usually looks like

Our technicians see the same handful of issues repeatedly across Sydney cafes, commercial kitchens and car wash bays. A standard household GPO mounted at bench height in a zone that gets hosed down daily. A light fitting with no IP rating marked on it at all, often original to a much older fitout. A switchboard enclosure with visible rust or water staining, which is usually a sign the board itself is well below IPX6 rather than just cosmetically worn. Flexible cords run across a wet floor to portable equipment instead of a properly rated fixed outlet.

Any one of these is enough to fail a compliance check, and in a commercial setting it is also the kind of defect an insurer or a council food safety inspection can flag even before an electrical inspector does, which makes it a genuinely costly problem to leave unresolved.

6. Why this matters more for Sydney hospitality and car wash businesses than homeowners

Most homeowners never deal with Clause 6.7 directly, since a domestic kitchen is cleaned by hand rather than hosed down as a matter of course. It becomes directly relevant the moment a space is used commercially: a cafe or restaurant kitchen, a commercial food production room, a butcher or deli prep area, or a car wash bay. If you are fitting out or taking over a Sydney hospitality venue, checking the existing switchboard, GPOs and light fittings against Clause 6.7 before opening is worth doing alongside, not instead of, a broader commercial kitchen electrical fitout review.

It is also worth checking whether an existing circuit is simply overloaded rather than just under rated for moisture. Our guide on why a commercial kitchen keeps tripping circuits covers the separate but related problem of load, which often gets fixed in the same visit as an IP rating upgrade.

Why it's Level 2 ASP work

Bringing an older commercial kitchen or car wash bay up to Clause 6.7 standard often means more than swapping a few fittings. Where the existing switchboard needs relocating, where new dedicated circuits are required for correctly rated equipment, or where the overall supply capacity needs reviewing as part of the upgrade, the job moves into switchboard upgrade and power supply upgrade territory that a Level 2 electrician in Sydney is accredited to carry out. A general electrician can replace a single GPO, but assessing whether your whole board and supply arrangement can safely support a compliant wash down area is Level 2 scope.

How High Demand Electrical helps

High Demand Electrical is one of Sydney's most trusted Level 2 ASPs for commercial fitout work, and we are used to assessing cafes, commercial kitchens and car wash bays against Clause 6.7 as part of a standard electrical safety inspection. We service hospitality and commercial clients across Sydney's West, South West and Sutherland Shire, and we will tell you plainly whether your existing board can be brought up to IPX6 in place or whether relocation is genuinely the better fix, along with correctly rated replacement GPOs, light fittings and isolators for the zone you actually have. If your fitout also needs new or upgraded defect notice rectification work flagged by a prior inspection, we can scope that in the same visit rather than sending you to a second contractor.

If you operate or are fitting out a venue in Sydney's inner west, our sister site HD Inner West also covers cafe and restaurant switchboard fitouts in the inner west in more local detail.

Get an Electrical Safety Inspection Quote

If you are fitting out a commercial kitchen, cafe or car wash bay in Sydney, or want an existing one checked against AS/NZS 3000 Clause 6.7, talk to High Demand Electrical before you open or renew your lease. Get an Electrical Safety Inspection Quote or call 0402 559 777. Every job needs a site assessment before scope or pricing can be confirmed.