What is the lifespan of a mobile home?

[Guest]

My MH will be 40 years old next year, but is still structurally sound. For the last 16 years it has provided me with a nice and very inexpensive place to live in a nice park. In another 11 years or so I will be looking at retirement and by that time my place will be 50 years old. That will be a time when I already want to have where I will live situated and not be the time when I need to look for a new place.

My home does need some work if I am looking to stay more long term. The roof will definitely be one item although I do not have bad leaks now, but just 1 which I have hopefully fixed. I will need to switch my electrical from screw in fuses to a circuit breaker. A furnace is another possibility, although for the last 6 winters here in Wisconsin I have used oil filled radiators after my fuel oil tank fell over on 9/11. I have actually liked the radiators better than the furnace because the house if heated more evenly, comfortably and cheaply, being able to regulate the heat room by room.

These things I could do over the next few years. There is a MN next to me which is in better shape and 6 years newer than mine that may soon be available for only $3000. Should I consider this or is its long term possibilities no better than mine? For the next few years I will not be in a financial situation to buy anything more expensive or very new since I just bought a new vehicle. My MH is quite livable now, I am wondering about its longer term possibilities and how much life it may have left.

[JD]

If your home is structurally sound, it can be maintained indefinitely. But maintenance on older mobile homes can be expensive. New roofs can cost as much as the other home you are looking at. Some new roof products will not last the 11 years you are talking about. A premium roof product could cost 2-3 times the price of that other home but should last 20 to 30 years or more, with very little maintenance. Mobile homes do not like water. A persistent roof or plumbing leak could destroy a home in a few years.

By the age of your home, I am thinking you have aluminum siding, a galvanized metal roof and probably cpvc plumbing. If so, you want to be sure that your aluminum siding stays closed up at all times. These older homes will tend to settle and "relax", which can cause the siding to open up. It is often not a leveling problem per se, and if it is, usually releveling a mobile home will not correct the problem. Sometimes it is removing and resetting the siding, sometimes it is screws and caulking.

Just keep the home dry, get your electrical up to date, check your plumbing frequently and your home could last as long as you need it.

JMO

JD

[Maureen]

Hi There!

We also own an older mobile home. Ours is 34 years old. We plan on retiring in the next 6 years. We bought this to be our retirement home! We've spent the last 9 years landscaping a 1/3 acre of land and getting the home in shape as far as roof, electric, some plumbing (more to come) and making it senior friendly. Both hubby and I work long hours, so it's been very slow going!

Kids that won't leave home are hampering our interior renovations. Can't blame them though, they're putting themselves through college. That's not an easy financial feat these days. Full time work and full time school!

We look at it this way. Any home that we choose to retire in is going to take upkeep. A mobile may be a bit different, but not as cheap as an older stick built home. The need new roofs, plumbing and electrical upgrades also! Neither of us are condo or apartment type people. We like our own yard and a little space.

In my opinion, as long as the home is structurally sound, in your financial comfort zone and enough square footage, stay where you are. I don't believe in going into debt with anything that you can't afford comfortably. I also don't believe that we all need to keep up with the 'Jones'. I don't need to have what everyone else has.

Any mobile or manufactured home will last for a very long time, if maintained properly.

Maureen

[troyster]

Hi, I agree with Maureen & JD. A home will last only as long as you want it to so long as you keep up on the maintenance. If you start with a structurally sound home and maintain it as you would an automobile that you want to last then you could live in it for as long as you like. My home is also 34 years young and counting and we plan on spending a long time in our investment. look after the roof,plumbing,electrical & structure and it will last.

[Guest]

Thanks for the reassuring replies. My MH is not just where I live, it has been my home for 16 years and has many good memories. From where I am typing this I can remember my daughter playing on the living room floor when she was just 18 months old and now she is 15 and 5'10". It would be hard to leave this place. The place next door is bigger, appears better, and is a little newer, but I have become comfortable in my home and it is me. Plus, for the $204 a month I pay in lot rent and taxes I couldn't even get a decent efficiency apartment. Add to that my energy bill, all electric, was only $88/month and last month it was only $43. So it is cheap living.

If I stay here I will need to triage my problems. Getting a circuit breaker put in is a big one. I think my roof will be ok for a few more years, then it will be time for a roof-over, although I have never seen one here or know who does them. Fortunately, I don't have any major problems and can deal with what I need as I can.

[Yanita]

Good morning,

I certainly agree with what everyone has said.

My Hubby and I bought this 36 yo old home last year, LOL, it's built better than the new singlewide we had.

Since you are so comfortable in your home and it meets your needs and is structurally sound....keep it and do the upgrades as money allows.

As with anything, without proper care/maintenance it will not last, preventive maintenance and care it will last you your lifetime!

You mentioned your roof...might I suggest you take a look in the BOOKS/PARTS link above. Mark has a manuel for sale that also has a DIY roof over. It has complete instructions, easy to understand directions and pictures to help the novice complete the job. This manuel also has many other great preventive maintenance suggestions and areas to watch for damage, and of course repair info. If for no other reason a great item to have to make sure your maintenance/repair people are doing the job correctly.

Welcome to the site, and enjoy your older home, there are many of us here that have the oldies!

~Yanita~

[brucetrout]

My Newport was built in 1976. The mobilehome repair guy that does the work that I'm not comfortable doing myself tells me that he does a lot more work on newer mobilehomes due to poor materials and workmanship than the older ones. He has told me that my home is stucturally good and from what I've seen myself it seems to be built pretty soundly.
I agree with everyone else-do the upgrades that are necessary as money allows and enjoy the other things in life that living in a mobile affords us.
Good luck
brucetrout

[Maureen]

Hi Bruce,

I have to agree with your repairman!

I've lived in quite a few mobile homes that were built in the 1950's through 1980's.

The 1955, or 54 Spartan was was rock solid! Only about 34 x 8, but the craftsmanship was beyond belief!

Next was a 1960's home, can't remember the make or manufacturer. It was a 12x60 and solid.

1972 12x60 Champion home, a night mare!

1973 Manatee, upgrade from the basic Champion, but same company... not great! Really not much of an upgrade at all!

Took time off from mobiles, and went to stick builts.

1982, Fuqua, brand new! More of a nightmare than any one could imagine! Horrid experience!

Build a custom stick built home.. another nightmare LOL! Huge money pit!

Got real and old, found a real solid home on some prime property. Upgrades that we've made have only added to our home. Very pleased with our 1973 home!

Maureen

[June]

JD, you say to make sure your aluminum siding "stays closed up." How do I know if mine is closed up or not? I'm not sure what you mean.
June

[JD]

There are 3 types of mobile home aluminum siding. There is the house looking lap siding, vertical sheet siding and horizontal panel siding.

The vertical siding usually comes 3ft wide and 7ft-9ft tall, depending on the gingerbread trim stuff at the top and bottom. I am repairing a vertical siding home now where the siding is 8'-3" tall. Anyways, one side is just the edge of the metal, straight with no change. The other side of the siding is what they call a lock, which will be sort of a Z bend that the straight side of the next panel seats into. Kind of a male/female thing. As homes settle, they can get tweaked causing an actual bend in the home. There can be enough movement where the straight edge of the siding is pulled out of the lock on the next siding panel. Of course, water can easily get into the walls when this happens.

Horizonal panels are more like RV siding, where sections 8ft wide by ~2ft tall sections are install one above the other. The locks now run horizontally. The panels are all about 8' long, so there needs to be a joint put in between the panels. For some idiotic reason, they used a plastic "H" strip. All of these homes are old and the plastic is brittle and falling apart. Below are pictures of this type of siding and repair. This is the home I showed pictures of last week with the air conditioner in the wall.

The repair was to remove the worthless plastic, caulk behind the open edges of the aluminum siding, fasten the siding down with 16ga narrow crown staples (screws were too big for the small wall stud), then caulk over the entire joint. This looks pretty ugly, so I covered the joint with an aluminum trim piece and then caulked the edge of that to the wall. We used Vulkem 116 polyurethane caulking for everything. We are in the process of painting the home now and will look great when we are done.





JD

[June]

Very nice! Thank you. Mine is vertical aluminum, and it seems to be good, locked together, all around. Ah, one thing that didn't have to go on the worry list. That's good!
June

[Yanita]

Well, my turn to learn something new.

Never seen a MH with that plastic H strip.

Thanks for the pics JD!

~Yanita~

[JD]

We have a lot of those types of mobile homes here in California. Everyone of them has the plastic breaking off like you see in the pictures.

JD

[Maureen]

Hey JD,

Thanks for the info! I don't have that type of siding, but plenty of other folks here do. I never understood why they used that plastic. I had no clue what to tell folks when that plastic started cracking off on their homes. Now I can tell them how it needs to be fixed!

The Winter to Summer weather up here isn't kind to plastic on exteriors. Below zero to triple digits isn't kind to many things LOL!

Maureen

[JD]

Hi Maureen,

I could see how the industry was thinking space age plastics when the Jetsons were still a new cartoon. But even now they sell those cheap white plastic plumbing vent caps. They sell them in RV stores! When these things break up and blow away, they leave a nice home in a metal roof wide open. A galvanized plumbing steel vent costs about 4 bucks. I dunno. Seems like it is wrong to make inexpensive items that you can expect to cause expensive repairs.

JD