Every building has a year that hurts. Find yours before it finds you.
Independent replacement cost ranges and service-life data for commercial buildings — published with their sources, so you can build a capital plan that survives the board meeting.
Illustrative composite, not a specific property. Bars show relative remaining service life to make the sequencing legible — no cost figures are implied. Real service-life ranges and their sources are on the useful life page.
Budgeting a decade, or pricing one system?
Most people arrive here doing one of two jobs. They need different pages.
Plan a capital budget
Build a replacement schedule across every major system, find the years where costs stack, and sequence the work before the stack becomes a surprise.
- The 10-Year Capital Plan Worksheet
- Service-life ranges by system, with sources
- How to sequence around a cliff year
Price a system replacement
Reported cost ranges by system and specification, plus what actually drives the number — so you can read a bid instead of just receiving one.
- Roof replacement by membrane system
- What moves a price up or down
- Questions to ask before you sign
Your reserve study says twenty years. That number came from a table, not from your building.
Service-life tables publish a range, and the range is wide for a reason: membrane type, climate zone, deck construction, drainage, foot traffic and maintenance history each move it by years. Collapsing that range into one number and multiplying it across a portfolio is how a capital plan ends up describing a building nobody owns.
We publish the ranges as ranges, name the source and the year, and say plainly what pushes a given building toward one end of it. [SOURCE-TBC — the specific published ranges cited in this section must be attached before this page indexes.]
The questions people email us before they read anything
| What it costs you | Nothing, and there is no account to create. Every cost range, service-life table and planning tool on this site is open. The worksheet is a free download in exchange for an email address, and that is the only thing we ever ask for. |
| Where the numbers come from | Published sources you can go and check yourself. ASHRAE and NRCA service-life data, ASTM E2018 assessment framing, DOE/EIA building stock data, and public brokerage research. Every figure carries its source and the year it was published, and every page states its method. |
| How current it is | Ranges are reviewed quarterly and stamped with the review date. When a source publishes a revision we update the figure and note what changed rather than quietly swapping the number. |
| What it covers | The five line items that dominate a commercial capital plan. Roofing, HVAC, paving, building envelope and elevators, with fire and life-safety systems on the roadmap. Residential single-family is out of scope. |
| What happens to your email | It gets you the worksheet and the quarterly update, nothing else. We do not sell, rent or broker contact details to contractors, manufacturers or anyone else, and there is no per-lead arrangement anywhere in this business. Unsubscribe in one click. |
| What it is not | A planning reference, not a professional opinion. Nothing here replaces a condition assessment, a reserve study, an engineer, or a bid from a licensed contractor, and none of it is legal, tax or investment advice. Use it to arrive at those conversations already knowing the shape of the number. |
Four steps, and a figure that fails any of them does not ship
Find a citable source
Published, publicly checkable, and attributable. If a figure only exists behind a membership wall or in a licensed dataset, we cite the direction and the method, never the number.
Keep it a range
Published ranges stay ranges. We do not average a range into a single figure, because the width of the range is the useful part.
Name the drivers
Every range is paired with what moves a building toward one end of it — system type, climate zone, construction, use and maintenance history.
Date and re-check it
Source and publication year sit next to the figure, with a review date. Every range is re-checked quarterly and revisions are noted, not silently swapped.
Common questions
Is BuildingCapEx free to use?
Yes. Every cost range, service-life table and planning tool on the site is open, with no account and no paywall. The 10-Year Capital Plan Worksheet is a free download in exchange for an email address.
Where do your cost and service-life figures come from?
Published, publicly checkable sources: ASHRAE and NRCA service-life data, ASTM E2018 assessment framing, DOE and EIA building stock data, and public brokerage research. Every figure carries its source and publication year, and every page states its method. Where useful data exists only in a licensed dataset, we describe the method and the direction rather than republishing figures we do not have the right to publish.
Does this replace a reserve study or a condition assessment?
No. This is a planning reference. It helps you understand the shape of a number and the questions worth asking, so you arrive at a condition assessment, a reserve study or a contractor bid already informed. It is not an engineering opinion and it is not a substitute for one.
Do you sell my details to contractors?
No. We do not sell, rent or broker contact details, and there is no per-lead arrangement anywhere in this business. Your email gets you the worksheet and the quarterly update, and you can unsubscribe in one click.
How do you make money if everything is free?
Flat-fee sponsorships and directory listings, always labelled. Sponsors pay for placement, never per lead, per click or per project, and payment never buys a mention inside our reference content, a ranking or a recommendation. We take no commission on any project sourced through this site. The full arrangement is set out in our editorial policy.
What is in the 10-Year Capital Plan Worksheet?
A replacement schedule you fill in per system, a place to record install dates and condition, and a year-by-year view that shows where costs stack up. It is the same structure as the schedule on this page, sized for a real building rather than an illustration.
Do you cover residential, condo or HOA property?
Not yet. The current scope is commercial, industrial and multi-tenant buildings. Reserve study requirements for condo and HOA associations are on the roadmap, and they vary considerably by state.
The 10-Year Capital Plan Worksheet
A replacement schedule for every major system in your building, plus the year-by-year view that shows you the cliff before you reach it.
Find the year that hurts while you can still do something about it
The worksheet takes about twenty minutes to fill in and it usually changes at least one line of next year’s budget.