Durability
Most people don't realize that one of the main tenants describing a green building material is that it has a longer useful life span and requires less maintenance. Whether it's a deck or a roof, flooring or countertops, less time, energy and money maintaining and replacing these materials means more time and money available to live your life. It also means less debris in the landfills.
Choosing and even spending more money on materials that are more durable can save a lot of money in the future. Consider your choices in siding:
Standard choice: Wood shingle siding
Needs constant maintenance.
Must be painted every 5-8 years.
Or clear finished every 2-3 years.
Untreated, it can rot away in 3-4 years
Is degraded by sun and rain
More expensive to purchase, install and maintain
Burn easily when dried out or old
Green choice: Fiber cement siding
Lasts as long as the house is standing.
Needs to be painted every 15 to 20 years.
Does not rot or mildew.
Is not degraded by sunlight.
Fireproof.
Now, which one makes the most sense to use on the side of your home, the most expensive investment that you will ever have, protecting it from the damaging effects of the sun, wind and rain.
Hardwood floors: a choice for durability and family health.
Ever notice that old houses usually have refinished hardwood floors? These because these floors can easily last for 50+ years and be refinished 4-5 times. Many only need to be refinished every 12-15 years. How long did your last carpet last? Most likely not more than the typical 5-8 years. Guess what makes up 2% of our landfills? That’s right- carpeting. Did you know that an old carpet weight 7 times more when it is removed from a house than when it was put in? Take a look at what makes up this increased weight:
- pesticides from landscaping
- hydrocarbons from the streets
- dirt, dander, dust mites
- highly allergenic excrement from any other insects
- food and drinks
- carpet cleaners
- mold and mildews
- anything else that falls onto it in the 5-8 years of a carpet’s expected life.
Disconcerting as the thought may be, no matter how much you vacuum, you can never really get a carpet clean: vacuuming only reaches ¼” into the carpet pile. With a hardwood floor, however, you only need a broom and a mop to get it as clean as the day it was installed.
Quality and Durability Pays for Itself
It is true that often high quality building materials that are more durable than their competition are more expensive. This is logical and more often than not, is true of everything that we buy. Homes are like cars. Would we expect a Toyota Camry to cost the same as a Kia Sprectra? Probably not, but you would expect it to last a lot longer and cost you a lot less to maintain and fix, if the Camry ever needed fixing. So should we expect granite countertops to cost the same as Formica countertops.
Now look at the comparison between the Camry and the Jaguar X. The Jaguar costs twice what the Camry does and has a horrendous repair history, costing more money to purchase, maintain and repair. Imported Italian marble countertops are significantly more expensive than granite countertops even though they require more maintenance, are more easily damaged and will not last as long. Very often, neither the cheapest, nor the most expensive material is the most durable material. But in the long term, the most durable material is almost always the most inexpensive way to go.
Roofing is a great example of this idea. If you choose to put a 35 year roof on a house($12,000) instead of spending and extra $2,500 to put a lifetime warrantee roof on the same house ($14,500), that choice would cost your $8,591 in 25 years and $26,836 in 50 years, a 5% return on your original investment.
While your roof was earning you money, it is also acting low cost homeowners insurance. Because it is three times thicker, it is more resistant to damage by wind, rain and the sun while because it is a class 1 fire resistant material it will protect your house from forest and brush fires like those that have so savagely claimed 100’s of homes in Southern California.