Cost per year: up to three candidates over one study period
Enter each candidate's installed cost, a life figure you can name the source of, yearly care, and any periodic work such as a recoat or a reseal. The calculator counts replacements over one shared study period and gives a total and a cost per year for each.
Assumptions behind the numbers
- Purchases = the study period divided by the life, rounded up. A surface that wears out before the period ends is bought again at today's installed cost; the last replacement is counted as a full purchase even if the period ends partway through its life.
- Periodic work (a recoat, a reseal, a professional cleaning you list here rather than under yearly care) starts again with each new installation, falls every so many years after it, and is not counted in the year the surface is replaced or the period ends.
- Total = installed cost × purchases + yearly care × years + periodic cost × number of jobs. Cost per year = total ÷ study period.
- This is the structure of NIST's life-cycle cost method (Handbook 135, 2025 edition) in its simplest form: the same study period for every option, with replacements counted. NIST's method also discounts future costs to today's dollars, credits any value left at the end and adds removal and disposal. This version does none of those, so over long periods it gives later costs more weight than NIST's would.
- There is no default life. Published figures are surveys and planning tables, not promises, and they differ by a factor of three for vinyl floors; the table on this page shows them with their dates. Installation, use and care move a surface's life more than the material does.
Published life figures
The only life tables we found for home finishes. Read each as its publisher says to: a guideline from a survey, not a promise. Pick a figure, or your own, and write where it came from.
| Surface | NAHB 2007 (years) | InterNACHI (years) | Fannie Mae, rental floors and cabinets (multifamily, seniors, students) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wood floor, solid | Lifetime | 100+ | Wood (strip or parquet): 15, 20, 20 |
| Engineered wood floor | 50+ | 50+ | No separate row |
| Laminate floor | 15 to 25 | 15 to 25 | No row |
| Vinyl floor | 50 | 25 | Resilient: 10, 15, 7 |
| Linoleum | 25 | 25 | Resilient: 10, 15, 7 |
| Carpet | 8 to 10 | 8 to 10 | 7, 10, 3+ |
| Tile floor | 75 to 100 | 75 to 100 | Ceramic, tile or terrazzo: 20, 25, 20 |
| Granite or marble floor | 100+ | 100+ | No row |
| Natural stone counter | Lifetime | 100+ | No row |
| Plastic laminate counter | No row | 20 to 30 | No row |
| Wood or tile counter | Lifetime | 100+ | No row |
| Kitchen cabinets | 50 | 50 | Wood: 20, 25, 15; particle board: 15, 20+, 13 |
| Engineered quartz, solid surface, porcelain slab, rigid-core vinyl, cork | No published figure | ||
Sources: NAHB and Bank of America Home Equity, Study of Life Expectancy of Home Components (February 2007, a 2006 telephone survey of makers and associations, "a general guideline only"); InterNACHI's Standard Estimated Life Expectancy Chart (undated; most rows match NAHB's); Fannie Mae's estimated useful life tables (2019), reprinted in the Port of Seattle's 2025 appendix, for rental property condition assessments. "Lifetime" is NAHB's word; the study does not turn it into years. Fetched 2026-10-31.
The Brennans compare three counters over 20 years. Granite: $3,600 installed, a life of 40 years (their pick, below NAHB's "Lifetime" and InterNACHI's 100+), $20 a year of care and a $150 reseal every 5 years, gives $4,450, about $223 a year. Quartz: $4,200, 25 years (their own assumption; no published figure), $15 a year, gives $4,500, $225 a year. Plastic laminate: $1,500, 20 years (InterNACHI's low end), $15 a year, gives $1,800, $90 a year. Under these assumptions laminate costs least per year and the other two nearly tie; the life figures, which are their own picks, decide the order. The family and figures are invented for this manual.
The result is a comparison under your assumptions, not a forecast, a quote or financial advice. It leaves out financing, resale value, discounting, removal and disposal. Installation quality, use and care move a surface's life more than the material does, and no life figure here is a promise.