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Comment by m0llusk | Hacker News Reader

Take just the roof alone. On a typical house roof replacement is at least a few thousand dollars and for a nice house in an urban area it will cost at least ten thousand and maybe much more. Even with good materials and installation roofs stay in good condition for around 30 years and become completely degraded in around 50. Some napkin math for a common and kind scenario is another $10k roof every 30 years which is $333/year or $27/month just to keep basic structure integrity.

Now add on to that interior details, floor coverings, appliances, and such many of which are lucky to last 10 years and the numbers start to add up.

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You can get a copper roof that is pretty much permanent. The problem is that it will outlast your life and your plans for the house. You won't get to amortize it forever to realize those cost savings.

People don't generally want to enter 50+ year long commitments for physical assets/money.

> Now add on to that interior details, floor coverings, appliances, and such many of which are lucky to last 10 years

Interior stuff pretty much lasts forever if the house is kept at a stable temperature range & humidity. I have 1 nice hardwood door inside my house installed 12 years ago. It looks and works like brand new. You can basically pick things for inside your house that will last forever.

There's a pretty common trend on HN and in general to embellish house upkeep costs. I think it's mostly people who rent doing it, because they have no idea what it actually costs or aren't handy enough to do simple repairs.

But a roof is the "main cost event" to maintain a single family home in a decade timescale. With decades/century timescales and the flux increase appreciating nature of housing, these type of costs are pulverized to the ground. $27/month really became at least half that on inflation alone (seeing the past thirty year on the dollar), coupled by increases equity of the house, renos done on borrow, and over its course of time it becomes cents or disappears into an upside.

I think it will be more interesting with "basic structure integrity" at the century scales. Do we really know economic impacts when tract housing/wood structures are tested well? I'm thinking past time scale of the electric and plumbing overhauls at the 50-100 year marks. There is a ton of housing out there that is less than a century old.

For a typical US house that's about true, but I feel like your numbers show the opposite of what you're stating. Less than $30/mo for the major replacement item budget. So basically nothing.

Houses can be constructed better, as well. The house I grew up in is now over a century old and it's the same roof, because it's concrete.

An asphalt roof with dimensional shingles on your average house in the sunbelt will set you back $10-15k every 15-20 years, more if significant amounts of decking need to be replaced.

From a building sciences perspective, if possible, I almost always recommend a standing seam metal roof due to a 40-50 year lifetime (and you can mount solar panel racking to the standing seams without penetrating the roof).

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