How Long Stuff Lasts
The average life expectancies of your home’s mechanical systems, materials & appliances

At the bottom of this page are comprehensive tables itemizing the average life expectancies for a variety of your home’s components.

While you won’t be able to set your watch by these estimates, they will provide you a sense of when you might reasonably expect them to fail & need replacement.

BASIC FACTS

1. Nothing lasts forever
2. Houses don’t take care of themselves.
3. And, at some point, each of the systems & equipment in your home will need to replaced. It’s just a matter of when.

Industry studies indicate that the average house may need a 50 percent replacement over a period of 30 years. And it is recommended that homeowners budget 2% to 3% of their home’s value per year for repairs & replacements.

Fortunately, many building components - foundation, framing, plumbing and wiring - should last 50 years or more. But mechanical systems, appliances and surfaces exposed to weather will not last nearly that long.

While some parts of a home are able to be repaired, others, unfortunately, could reach the point where the only solution might be total replacement of the equipment

QUESTIONS

1. Are there any components in your home that are living on borrowed time?
2. Are there any which you feel will need to be replaced very soon … just to keep your home habitable?
3. Do you have a sense of what it will cost to replace this equipment?
4. Have you budgeted for this expense?

KEEP IN MIND
Even though you may have paid-off your mortgage, there is no such thing as a “free house”.

Beside the numerous ongoing & perpetual carrying costs (property taxes, insurance, utilities, landscaping & other service vendors), there is also a significant risk of unexpected replacement costs for a variety of major home systems & appliances.
READ - The Permanent Costs of Homeownership

MODERN APPLIANCES
You would think that, with all of the advancements in technology, modern appliances would be designed to last a lifetime. However, as manufacturers add more “bells & whistles” conveniences to their products, those conveniences typically involve sensitive electronic displays, sensors and switches which are vulnerable to failure and are expensive to repair.

Unfortunately, the durability and life expectancies for many of today’s appliances can sometimes be disappointing.

HIDDEN MEANING OF MAINTENANCE-FREE
Sometimes the term Maintenance-Free means a product is deliberately designed to not be repairable … only replaced.

BUILDING PERMITS
Many repair or replacement projects require opening building permits which may involve providing architectural or engineering drawings. In addition, you may not be permitted to simply replace some components of your home with affordable alternatives. Instead you may be required to replace the component with a product that meets a stricter, more expensive, energy efficiency standard.

EXAMPLE: In some municipalities, once you open a building permit for windows, you cannot simply replace your windows with “better windows”. Instead windows with thermo-panes filled with argon gas (which are more expensive) might be required.

Below are tables of estimated average life expectancies for everything from microwave ovens to garage door openers