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This tool is provided by Model Mentor LLC for general educational purposes. It is a calculator that performs arithmetic on figures supplied entirely by the user. It does not inspect, examine, value, appraise, survey or evaluate any property, and it produces no findings, opinions or conclusions about any property.
Nothing here constitutes a home inspection, real estate appraisal, opinion of value, brokerage service, engineering assessment, construction estimate, insurance advice, or legal, tax, accounting or financial advice. Model Mentor LLC is not a licensed home inspector, appraiser, engineer, contractor or real estate broker, and does not hold itself out as any of these. No professional, fiduciary, advisory or client relationship is created by your use of this tool.
All ages, replacement costs, purchase prices and other figures are entered by you. Model Mentor LLC does not verify, endorse or warrant any figure you enter, and has no knowledge of any property to which you apply this tool. Any output reflects only your own inputs.
This tool supplies no component-life figures. Every planning life, age and cost is entered by you, from sources you select. Where the tool refers to external resources it does so by reference only and does not reproduce them.
Component-life figures are planning assumptions, not predictions of remaining useful life. Published service-life ranges describe general expectations under assumed conditions; they do not establish how long any particular component in any particular property will last. A component past its assumed life may continue to function for years, and a component well within its assumed life may fail without warning. Subtracting age from an assumed life produces a planning horizon, not a statement of fact about the property.
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What this house will ask you for after you own it.
The purchase price is not the full picture of what ownership involves. Every major system has a service life and a replacement cost. Enter your own assumptions and this arranges them across a decade — a planning estimate, produced from the figures you supply.
Free · no sign-up · no email requiredEvery figure here is yours, and so is its source. You supply the planning life, the age, the replacement cost — and where the cost came from. This tool supplies none of them. It does not tell you how long a component lasts or what work costs in your area. It arranges what you bring, and shows you how much of your total rests on a quote and how much rests on a guess.
Ask these of every system below
What is it, and how old?
Who permitted it, and does the permit transfer?
What would it take to replace it, and who decides that?
What does it cost to service, and who services it?
Question three is the expensive one, and it asks who decides rather than what the answer is. Something built decades ago may be straightforward to maintain and difficult to replace — and the authority having jurisdiction is the only source for that.
Component-life figures are planning assumptions, not predictions of remaining useful life. A component past its assumed life may last another decade. One well inside it may fail tomorrow. This tool arranges assumptions into a planning horizon — it does not tell you when anything will fail.
Customer-reported → documented source → third-party professional input. Every figure can be upgraded. Note where each one came from and you will see which parts of this number rest on something outside your own estimate.
Read those figures alongside your mortgage payment, taxes, insurance and any association dues. That combined figure — not the purchase price — is the scale of what ownership may involve, on the assumptions you entered.
Suggestions are shown only where we could attribute a planning life to a published source. They are averages compiled for other purposes, not statements about your property, and the source is named for every one.
| Source | What it is | The caveat |
|---|---|---|
| Fannie Mae Form 4099.F — Estimated Useful Life Tables, Appendix F to the Instructions for Performing a Multifamily Property Condition Assessment (2014) | Standardised average estimated useful life values used in property condition assessments. | Compiled for multifamily property. A building serving many households is not a single-family house, and the figures were never intended for one. Treat them as a starting point. |
| ASHRAE service life data — publicly available at costdatabase.ashrae.org | Median service life for HVAC equipment, with entries specific to residential systems. | Medians across a population of equipment. A median is not a prediction about one furnace. |
Fannie Mae’s tables state that they are average values and are not intended to replace professional judgment about the condition of any actual component. ASHRAE’s figures are medians. Both are true of every suggestion here.
Better sources exist for your property, and you should prefer them. The manufacturer’s documentation for the actual equipment. A contractor who services that type of system in your area. And your inspector’s view on the condition of the specific component, which matters more than any published average.
The International Association of Certified Home Inspectors publishes a widely used estimated life expectancy chart, including a version for Florida and the surrounding coastal region. It is their resource, on their site, at nachi.org/life-expectancy.htm.
This is Read the Property’s own compilation. We selected which components a single-family buyer actually needs, chose a figure where published sources disagreed, and recorded the reasoning. The sources are named; the judgment is ours, and you are entitled to disagree with it.
| Component | Yrs | Source | Why this figure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roof — asphalt shingle (3-tab) | 20 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives 20 for 3-tab specifically. Manufacturer warranties on 3-tab commonly run 20–25 years, which is consistent. Architectural shingle is a different product with a longer warranty and we found no separately attributable figure, so it is left blank. |
| Roof — metal | 40 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives 40. Metal roofing varies enormously by gauge, coating and fastening method, so treat this as the loosest suggestion on the sheet. |
| Roof — wood shake | 25 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae lists cedar shake at 25. Climate drives this more than any other roof material. |
| Siding — vinyl | 25 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives 25. Their table separately lists wood and composite cladding at 20 and cement-board at 45, which brackets the range usefully. |
| Siding — aluminum | 40 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives 40. Aluminum tends to fail cosmetically long before it fails functionally, so the practical replacement point is often earlier than the service life. |
| Gutters & downspouts — aluminum | 10 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae lists exterior roof drainage at 10, which is short relative to the roof it serves. Worth noticing that gutters and roof are on different clocks. |
| Windows — vinyl / fibreglass frames | 30 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives 30 for vinyl or aluminum frames and glazing. Sealed-unit failure in double-pane glass often occurs well before frame failure, and we found no separately attributable figure for the sealed unit alone. |
| Water heater (conventional) | 10 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae lists a dedicated-fuel tank at 10, and unit-level domestic hot water at 10. Manufacturer warranties commonly run 6–12 years, which is consistent with a 10-year planning assumption. |
| Water heater (tankless) | 10 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae lists instantaneous units at 10. Note their table gives external tankless 15 — we used the lower figure because it is the one labelled instantaneous, which is the residential product. |
| Water lines — copper | 50 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives hot and cold water distribution 50. Water chemistry drives copper life more than age does. |
| Waste pipe — ABS / PVC | 50 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives sanitary waste and vent 50+. We used 50 because a plus sign cannot be arithmetic — the real figure is at least this. |
| Sump pump | 7 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae distinguishes residential sump pumps at 7 from commercial at 15. We used the residential figure, which is the point of naming the source. |
| Water softener | 15 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives water softening and filtration 15. |
| Electrical service panel | 50 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives unit electric panel 50+. Panels are more often replaced for capacity, obsolete breakers or insurability than for age — none of which this figure captures. |
| Foundation waterproofing — bituminous | 50 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives foundation waterproofing 50+. Reduced to 50 for the same reason as waste pipe. |
| Driveway — asphalt | 25 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives asphalt pavement 25, and separately lists seal coat at 5 — a recurring cost most buyers never model. |
| Concrete walks | 50 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives concrete sidewalk 50. |
| Deck — structural wood | 20 | Fannie Mae 4099.F | Fannie Mae gives wood decks 20. Structure and surface boards age differently and their table does not separate them. |
| Furnace | 18 | ASHRAE | ASHRAE gives gas- or oil-fired furnaces a median of 18. Fannie Mae gives 20 for a gas furnace with A/C. We used ASHRAE because its figure is equipment-specific and drawn from a residential population, while Fannie Mae's is a multifamily planning value. |
| Air conditioner (central) | 15 | ASHRAE | ASHRAE gives residential single or split-package units a median of 15. Fannie Mae's nearest equivalent is a pad or roof condenser at 20. We used ASHRAE — it names the residential configuration explicitly. |
| Heat pump | 15 | ASHRAE | ASHRAE gives residential air-to-air heat pumps a median of 15, against 19 for commercial water-to-air. We used the residential figure. Fannie Mae's dwelling-unit heat pump condensing component is also 15, so both sources agree here. |
| Ductwork | 30 | ASHRAE | ASHRAE gives ductwork 30. Ducts usually outlast two generations of the equipment attached to them, which is worth knowing before assuming a system replacement is a single cost. |
Five of these required a choice between conflicting sources. In each case we preferred the figure drawn from residential rather than commercial or multifamily data, and said so above. Where no source could be attributed, the component has no suggestion at all.
Whatever figure you use, note where it came from. A number you cannot source is an assumption you have not examined.
For waterfront structures and specialty systems, ask who permitted it before you ask what it costs. A dock can answer to four separate authorities and be properly permitted with three of them. This tool does not tell you what any rule requires — it tells you to go and ask.
The figures produced here are a capital planning estimate based on assumptions you entered. They are not an appraisal, an inspection, an engineering opinion, a contractor bid, a property-condition report, a legal determination, a representation about any seller, or a recommendation about any transaction. The tool arranges your assumptions. It does not determine anything about a property, and it does not tell you what decision to make.
This is educational material. It is not a home inspection, an appraisal, an opinion of value, engineering advice, or legal or tax advice, and it does not substitute for any of them. It produces a planning estimate on figures you supply — it does not determine what a property is worth, or anything about its condition. Every figure is your own — the planning life, the age and the cost. This tool reproduces no component-life data and supplies no figures of any kind. Engage a licensed inspector, contractor, engineer, appraiser or attorney for any decision that depends on professional judgment.