We moved into our current house 10 years ago on Halloween. We designed and built it with a custom builder exactly the way we wanted and are still very happy with the choices we made.
I recently ran across this infographic from the National Association of Home Builders and Bank of America that details how long you can expect many of the key components of your home to last. It appears we are moving into a huge window of likely repairs …!
We replaced some carpeting in our living room already, but that was more about style than wear & tear. Other than that, I can’t think of any of these things that have required replacement yet.
We’re pretty good about staying ahead of things, but we better start budgeting for a lot of fixes to come. According to this chart, in the next few years all of our appliances will likely konk out, and then we’ll get hit with bigger things: roofing, HVAC, and exterior siding/paint. We planned our house as low maintenance as possible, but I suppose that only buys you so much extra time.
How old is your home and how accurate does this chart look to you?
Image Credit: Pixabay
MrFireStation 
I built a house in 2005, everything new, at the 11 year make, I lost my water heater, dishwasher and dryer all within 12 months.
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Wow, that’s about right ‘on schedule’ …
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We built our retirement home in 2008. We also designed and custom built using low maintenance exteriors where practical. Eleven years in, and fortunately we’ve only had to replace a kitchen faucet so far. I’d say the above numbers are pretty accurate, and we are also in the same twilight zone for near-term potential repairs.
I’ve always kept a CAPEX accrual for these types of items (cost / life expectancy per month), and use similar numbers (above) for life expectancies. I’ve now accumulated approximately $40K in that fund over those eleven years, and when fully accrued it would amount to around $60K. Interestingly, since retiring 2.5 years ago, we’ve discussed downsizing now that our daughters are both grown, and pocketing that accrual account since we are “so far ahead of the house”. We probably won’t though, because we love our lakeside property and home…but it probably would be the smart financial decision to sell and keep the cash. I guess sometimes happiness trumps smart financial moves…I will just use the CAPEX accrual as those repairs eventually come and keep enjoying the property.
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That’s very sophisticated to budget for maintenance ahead of time through an accrual. We had budgets for upgrades to the house over time, but we’ve largely done most of those projects. I guess we should set those same $ aside for repairs now!
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