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While a builders’ warranty period may be for 6 years from the date of practical completion, the life of your house will be significantly longer. Guarantees only relate to minimum performance and you can expect far longer.

Outlined below are typical working lives for various building components. Note that many of the structural items such as bricks, footings, timber can have an effective life of well over 100 years.

Of course you can maximise the working life of your asset by regular upkeep and maintenance. Just like a motor vehicle, houses need regular services and the installation, include use and servicing of each building component is important. Regular cleaning and painting of gutters and termite inspections on a periodic basis, and other ongoing maintenance eg tile replacement is important.

Printed below are the likely service lives you can expect from various building materials and components according to sources sited:

 

Footings/Foundations 200 years
Concrete Pad  100 years
Bricks   Lifetime
Exterior Paint  7 – 10 years
Roof Tiles   50 years
Ceramic Tiles  Lifetime
Timber  Lifetime

 

Floor Surfaces: 

                      – Vinyl

                      – Timber

20 – 30 Years

Lifetime

 
External Door

(Unprotected Exposed)

30 Years

2 responses to “Materials & Environmental Footprint”

  1. Bernie Siva says:
    September 24, 2016 at 3:41 pm

    Hi
    I bought a house that was built in 1992, I have now noticed some kitchen tiles and veranda tiles are lifting. When we examined the kitchen tile by lifting it we found that there was no concrete pad under the tile, the tile in fact seems to be sitting on a compound sand pad is this a normal practice?

    The tiles on the veranda seems to be lifting due to moisture under the tile and it would seem that as this area is exposed to the weather no proper water proofing was undertaken before the lifting of the tiles, is this also normal?