Every time you choose a product, material or finish for your home, you’re also choosing how soon you’ll be repairing, refinishing or replacing it.

Choosing for durability and longevity can be a useful criteria in making sustainable choices for your renovation or new build.

In this episode, I share the five costs to factor into every selection, and how climate, active use and maintenance expectations shape what actually lasts in your home.

Listen to the episode now.

Hello! This is Episode 426. This is Way #26 of the 44 Ways to Create Your Sustainable Home series, and we’re beginning Section Six: Choosing Materials, Fixtures and Finishes.

The last couple of sections have been detail-heavy and chunkier episodes, especially as I’ve talked about the building envelope, because it’s where a lot of the technical decisions in your home happen.

Section 6 takes us back to our shorter, punchier episodes. In each, I’ll be covering one specific criteria for choosing materials and products for both the interior and exterior of your future home, so you have a roadmap for thinking about your sustainable choices when making selections for your renovation or new build.

Way #26 is: Choose for Longevity and Durability.

From the exterior cladding, windows and doors, and roofing material, through to the interior joinery, floor finishes, light fittings, tiles, even down to the door stops… there are a lot of choices to be made!

Every choice presents an opportunity for enhancing the sustainability of your future home.

The good news? There are loads of ways you can achieve sustainability when choosing materials, products, fixtures and finishes.

The challenging news? It’s rare to find something that ticks ALL the boxes.

So, in this episode, I’ll be talking about the first assessment criteria you can use when choosing materials, fixtures and finishes for your sustainable home, and that’s choosing for longevity and durability.

Everytime you choose a product or material or finish for your home, you’re also making a choice about how long it’ll be before you have to repair, refinish or replace it down the track…

It’s really common when choosing materials and balancing your project budget, to think about materials, fixtures and finishes based on the initial cost to purchase them. But that cost is really only one of five financial costs you can incur with a product or material.

Because the five costs you’ll really incur, when choosing a material, fixture or finish are:

1. the cost to purchase
2. the cost to deliver to site 
3. the cost to install
4. the cost to maintain over time
5. and the cost to eventually replace.

When you look at all five together, a material that seems cheaper upfront can quickly become the more expensive choice. And one that seems like an indulgence upfront can turn out to be the more practical investment over time.

I remember reading about a project where a homeowner had taken this approach when considering the exterior cladding on their two-storey home, particularly on the upper floor.

They had initially selected a weatherboard cladding product with a paint finish. But paint on an external wall needs repainting roughly every 10 to 15 years. On an upper storey, that repaint requires scaffolding, which adds significantly to the cost and disruption.

And so, they made the call to use Colorbond on the upper floor, and they calculated that, even though the upfront purchase and installation cost was higher, the difference would pay itself back by the time they paid for that first repaint, including the scaffolding. 

And then there’s no repaint cost again for the life of the cladding, and maintenance only involves washing down the facade every so often, which is significantly simpler.

Once you start applying this type of thinking to the selection of your materials, fixtures and finishes, you may find it can change a lot of decisions.

Longevity and durability isn’t just about how long something lasts. It’s also about how something holds up under active use. The items that are subjected to repeated mechanical action need to be super durable to support every day life in a home.

Where I’ve seen this succeed or massively fail is tapware. 

One such example is where homes have had freestanding baths with floor-mounted taps. The lever action used daily means the tap gradually loses its purchase with its floor fixing and starts to wobble, especially if it’s a budget fitting.

The same happens with lower-cost bench-mounted kitchen mixers. They may not have a solid fixing at the base, or have components that become loose over time and regular use, or their finish can show scratches, wear or tarnishing.

And stair balustrades or railings are another one, where kids swinging around the bottom post of the balustrade, or hanging off a railing can loosen the base plate fixing.

Where your home is located directly affects which materials will perform over time. Coastal locations subject metals and powdercoated finishes to salt air, which accelerates corrosion. Not all products extend their warranty to coastal zones, and some simply won’t last. 

High UV exposure, particularly in hotter climates, can degrade materials significantly faster than in temperate climates. 

High rainfall and tropical zones make moisture resistance critical. 

And if your home carries a Bushfire Attack Level rating, external materials must meet those BAL requirements and may have specific maintenance obligations tied to them.

In my opinion, when it comes to your home, if you’re not choosing for longevity and durability, you’re choosing for replacement.

So, you might be saving your budget now, just to have to spend it later. 

And kicking the can down the road in something like your home, can cause a lot of headaches over time.

In this Episode, I cover:

• The five financial costs to factor into any material, fixture or finish selection: purchase, delivery, install, maintenance and replacement
• Why the cheapest option upfront is often the most expensive when you look at the full picture, and vice versa
• Why longevity is often best served by natural materials
• How expectations about maintenance need to align with what materials actually require
• Why there really isn’t any such thing as a ‘maintenance-free’ product or material in your home
• How to think about active use, mechanical wear and tapware quality, and where kids can quietly loosen budget fittings
• How climate, coastal air, UV exposure, rainfall and BAL zones shape which materials will actually perform for you long-term
• Why choosing for longevity is a genuinely practical sustainability decision, and how planned obsolescence has been baked into so many of our choices
• What to check in warranties, maintenance schedules, testing methods and the way materials and fixtures are fixed and connected

Plus a whole lot more.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE NOW.

RESOURCES:

Episode 256, on choosing building materials >>> Choosing Building Materials, A How To

Download my free guide to simplify sustainability and help you create a healthy, low tox and sustainable home >>> ’44 Ways’ E-Guide

Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my signature online program >>> HOME Method