“Right Sizing” and Durability – Part Two

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The initial cost of a home is far from the total, real cost. As I mentioned in my previous post, the long-term life-cycle costs account for 85% of the monetary cost of a home; only 15% is that initial cost. A significant portion of that 85% is maintenance and repairs.

I am actually amazed at the number of builders and consumers that don’t really consider the durability and longevity of a product when purchasing a home. There are so many aspects to consider, but I’d like to highlight just two in this post: plaster walls and good paint.

There is a huge difference between drywall and a plaster finish on your walls and ceilings. Drywall is probably 15% to 20% less expensive initially than thinwall plaster. However, thin wall plaster has a number of advantages. It is much more durable. Try the “finger nail” test. Use your finger nail and see if you can dent drywall then see if you can dent plaster. It’s very telling. The ease with which drywall dents should be a good indicator.

Then, the finish you use for the walls, the paint, is every bit as important. Cheap paint may last a year or two or even five. But really good paint can last much much longer. Coupled with the durability of the plaster walls, good paint can last a very long time. Think about that the next time you may be tempted to use a cheap paint, then ask yourself in the whole scheme of things is that extra few hundred dollars (or even less) worth needing to paint more often?

I love to use the example of our last house. We finished the walls with plaster then used a very high quality paint (in 1998, the trim paint was $50 per gallon). We lived in the house until 2014, raised two teenagers and never repainted and it still looked brand new. Yes, 16 years later, the wall finish was still in great shape. It wasn’t even looking like it needed to be repainted.

We did the same plaster and high quality paint in the Lawrence house.

I could go on about things like wood floors in lieu of carpet and vinyl, high quality windows (durability and long-lasting energy efficiency), LED lights (which will last virtually forever) and so on.

Bottom line advice is to look at the long-term efficacy of the product and determine whether or not it will have the durability you desire. Will it reduce (or even eliminate) long term maintenance and what is the length of time you can expect before you have to replace it? That will be the telling factor in how cost-effective a product really is.

Oh, and the picture of the shoes? Those are a pair of $180 shoes I bought in 2005. I still wear them and they still look great.

“Right Sizing” and Durability – Part One

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There are many aspects of a home that are important. I want to highlight two of them in my next two posts: Physical size of the home and the durability of the materials. I’ll talk about size in this post and touch on durability in my next post.

As you can see from the chart, in the last 30 years, the average home size in the US has increased by over 50%. During that same period of time, the average household size DECREASED from 2.73 to 2.54 persons (a decrease of about 7%).

During this same period of time, the average Honda Civic went from 161″ in length to almost 180″ (a 12% increase) while its gas mileage (and this with all our newer technology to make us more fuel efficient) went from 34 city/47 highway all the way DOWN to 28 city/39 highway (almost a 20% DECREASE).

Ahhh, such is the American Way. Even the new Fiat 500X is somewhat affectionately dubbed the “Americanized” version of the traditional Fiat 500.

In America, we are often of the mindset that bigger is better and more is also… well… better. So we want bigger houses with extra rooms and space and bells and whistles… just because. We have a separate game room, a separate office, a separate media room, a computer room, a game room. But what we often forget is not only do we pay for that extra size in the INITIAL cost of the home, we pay extra EACH MONTH in higher utility bills, higher property taxes, higher maintenance costs, higher repair costs, etc.

Brenda and I “downsized” to our Lawrence Street home. The kids had grown and gone out on their own and we didn’t need the extra square footage (we actually only went upstairs to clean and dust). So we went from 2,754 sq ft to 1,617 sq ft. No media room, no game room, just a master bedroom, a guest bedroom and an office plus the main living/dining/kitchen space.

And it fits us perfectly.

The added benefit is our utility bills are still running negative (assisted by our 6kW solar system and super insulation). We have about 40% less house to clean, maintain and repair. Granted, the house is new, so we won’t have to do much in the way of repairs and maintenance for a while, and I’ll cover how we addressed this in my next post on durability. But when we do have maintenance and repairs, they will cost less than would be needed in a larger home.

I know of people who have purchased a larger-than-needed-home either because they could (I want to show everyone I have “succeeded” financially), or they “got a really good deal” (Look at all this square footage I got for only $200,000!). But the money they may have “saved” in their upfront costs will only go out each and every month in utilities, taxes, maintenance and repairs.

Only 15% of the true cost of a home is the initial cost; the other 85% is in utilities, taxes, maintenance and repairs.

We would serve ourselves well to factor that in when we are purchasing a home. “Right Sizing” should be one of the major factors in our decision to buy a home.

Next: Durability

Thinking of Net Zero

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We’ve been in our home 4 months now (coming up on 5, actually). Time sure flies.

As of the end of October, we have been using an average of about 295 kWh of electricity per month (remember we are 100% electric, no gas). And we have built up an 1,800 kWh CREDIT going into the winter.

We may just make that goal…