Home Appliance Replacement Costs

[ferco]

For those Er'd or near, what are your estimated replacement costs for:

Roof

Furnace

Water Heater

Plumbing

Electrical

Structural

Are there any other major replacement items you've encountered and their costs.

 

[bbbamI]

We budget about $3k a year for home improvements. We have a fluff factor of $10k built in each year for unforseen expenses covering all areas. This is easier for us instead of trying to figure out what will break/needs replacing and how much it will cost.

 

[calmloki]

For those Er'd or near, what are your estimated replacement costs for:
.....

For rentals a rough estimate is 5% of gross rent for maintenance. rough estimate based on rough approximation of rent would be 5% of your home's value - that should give you plenty of room.

 

[W2R]

Based on my past expenditures, I have a "paying for big unusual expenses" allowance each year that is about equal to the sum of all my regular, normal expenses. This includes big repair bills as well as dental work, TV's that die, and more. I don't usually spend that much.

My biggest home repair expense that you didn't list has been tree removal and other repairs after hurricanes.

 

[Nords]

For those Er'd or near, what are your estimated replacement costs for:
Roof
Furnace
Water Heater
Plumbing
Electrical
Structural
Are there any other major replacement items you've encountered and their costs.

A general point first: if being wrong on one of these issues will make or break an ER, then the plan is either undercapitalized or not flexible enough. For example, if a furnace replacement starts at $2000 but "new issues" drive the price up to $6000, that shouldn't ruin a budget. As Calmloki & W2R have indicated, maybe the key is not so much the focus on the cost of individual items but rather figuring out how much per year (on average) will be spent on "home repair" and "home improvement".

I think part of the price consideration should be how much time you're willing to spend on maintenance. The lifespan of every one of these objects can be greatly lengthened by proper care. So perhaps one cost is the $20 annual subscription to a magazine like Family Handyman or a home-care course at a community college.

Another issue is how much you're willing to invest up front. A cheap composition roof, 50-year wood shakes, or 100-year metal? A used water heater, a new energy-efficient water heater, or a solar water-heating system? Big price difference, and the payoffs depend on how much time you'll be spending in that house.

A final consideration should be how long you're able to delay a repair. You may need a new roof, but its life could be extended a couple years by various cheaper repairs while you adjust your spending/budgeting to catch up for the bigger expense. And if know the condition of a component well enough to project its replacement 5-10 years in the future then you'll rarely be surprised, and you'll have plenty of time to tweak spending over the next five years. But if your ER decision depends on predicting the precise year in which you have to make a major expenditure over the next decade or two, then you may be living a little too close to the edge.

But here's my experience:
Roof-- $10K for composition shingle, $25K for cedar shakes.

Furnace-- sorry, no idea.

Water heater-- $100 used from Craigslist, perhaps another $50 for parts, a morning to make the swap. An anode rod every 4-8 years. I've gone through this drill this 3-4 times now and used water heaters are plentiful.

Plumbing-- Rex Cauldwell's "Plumbing a House" is another essential reference ($30?) plus $100/year for tools/parts. Maybe another $200 every few years for a really neat faucet or shower head.

Electrical-- Rex wrote "Wiring a House", too. EnergyStar ceiling fans can get expensive ($250 and up) but knowing how to fix your own again can probably keep annual expenses under $100/year.

Structural? A few hundred bucks on paint every 5-8 years? $500 for termite treatment or $2000 for termite repairs? Free mulch or $1500 for sod? Or, after a decade of planning & pricing, spending thousands of dollars to bring in a crew to rip out/replace a lanai and repair lava-rock steps?

 

[W2R]

Water heater-- $100 used from Craigslist, perhaps another $50 for parts, a morning to make the swap. An anode rod every 4-8 years. I've gone through this drill this 3-4 times now and used water heaters are plentiful.

Or, if you are a single older woman with neither muscles nor a truck, who knows zero about hot water heaters except that she needs hot water - - I called a local plumber who brought a new one and installed it right away, for $800. Problem solved. Apparently that is what it costs to have that done, here.

 

[bbbamI]

For those Er'd or near, what are your estimated replacement costs for:

Roof

I should add since we live in TX, we just wait on the next hail storm. Sooo, I consider the deductible only in regards to this expense.

 

[Nords]

Or, if you are a single older woman with neither muscles nor a truck, who knows zero about hot water heaters except that she needs hot water - - I called a local plumber who brought a new one and installed it right away, for $800. Problem solved. Apparently that is what it costs to have that done, here.

And then there's the whole debate about going tankless!

 

[FIREd]

In the last 5 years we have had to change:

Roof: $11,000 (25 year asphalt shingles, but I assume a 15 year lifetime because of hail storms in our area)
Heat Pump: $6,000
Water heater: $600
Sewer line: $3,000

I personally set aside 1% of the value of our house every year to take care of all the big house repairs.

 

[WhoDaresWins]

Or, if you are a single older woman with neither muscles nor a truck, who knows zero about hot water heaters except that she needs hot water - - I called a local plumber who brought a new one and installed it right away, for $800. Problem solved. Apparently that is what it costs to have that done, here.

Oh, I hear you W2R. When I bought my present abode going on 6 years ago
I bought a new place for just that reason...hoping to forestall the need for repairs until it is time to move again. I must say that even though I came to be somewhat annoyed with my builder towards the end of the process, he must not have been too bad as I have never had any plumbing or electrical problems and no cabinets have fallen off the walls or anything. Knock on wood. It's not that I mind paying the going rate for a reputable tradesman it is just finding such a person can be difficult, poor economy or not.

 

[Delawaredave5]

Costs vary widely by region, house size and quality. Buddy of mine had a "quotation festival" - wrote up descriptions of what he wanted, made several pots of coffee, and had a dozen contractors come over one morning to bid.

For my area, 2,500 square foot house:
Roof: $7k
Furnace and AC: $8k
Water heater: $300

"Plumbing, elecrical, and sructural" are too vague to get any meaningful responses.

 

[Lakedog]

As previously mentioned, costs vary by region. Here are recent quotes and/or expenditures for my 1500 sqft house with attached garage:

Roof - asphalt shingle $3100; metal $4300 (have not decided which yet)
Heat pump - $3600
Water heater - $263 (new electric installed by me)
Appliances (Refrigerator $533, washer $278 both bought new at Lowes)

My house is brick so no outside painting required. My maintenance costs have averaged well under $1000 a year since I have owned this house (14 years) but it is reaching the age (16) where things need replacement (roof, heat pump).

 

[Orchidflower]

Delawaredave5, that seems like a mighty cheap cost for a roof on a 2,500 sq. ft. house. Maybe it was just Houston, but I had a bungalow, and they wanted $7,000 for re-roofing in 2001! Maybe they were price gouging as I lived in one of the "best" areas of town (i.e., average home there is like $450K I think now but maybe more).
Regardless, that's what they were asking for from me and another roofing company said the same to a neighbor with a similar house. (We had bungalows between the brick, yuppie giant estates in Bellaire, and, even tho our bungalows were well tended and cute, they were only 1,100 sq. ft. or so.)

 

[kyounge1956]

If you plan to continue forum participation you have to budget to replace your laptop or computer & monitor every now and again.

One thing that occurs to me as a possible future rural dweller is septic tank upkeep. Can anybody tell me how long these last? Does the tank itself have to be replaced, or the drain field need to be relaid periodically? I need to add something to my budget for this, or put aside a percentage of house value per year for all expenses like FireDreamer does.

The other thing that occurs to me is replacement of major equipment, tools, supplies etc used for hobbies. Some of these can run into quite a lot of money. I have a line item in my retirement budget for this.