Materials have a limited useful life, and more so when they are in the ground.  This became evident recently at my parents house, which they and remodeled over 40 years ago.

At the time when laying irrigation pipe, one used galvanized pipe.  But galvanized pipe can and does corrode over time.  In this case apparently after about 40 years.  One day when visiting, I noticed a puddle in the driveway.

We thought perhaps the neighbors had left their irrigation running, but it turned out to be a pipe leaking in the ground.  Thinking it was an isolated incidence, the landscapers dug it up, capped it off, and put the paving stones back.

Then, a few weeks later it happened again in another place.  And then another. So now it is apparent that the entire irrigation system has to be replaced, which means digging trenches like this one, across the driveway, to bury a sleeve to run irrigation pipes.

We started our project wanting to use only materials that would last almost forever.  The outside of our house has a considerable amount of concrete products on it, as well as other non-wood materials.  We installed a 50 year roof.

But as we near the project end, and check writing fatigue starts to set in, we are downgrading some of our materials, and considering carefully what their useful life might be.  One one side of the property, we are putting in fence instead of a plastered block wall (which should last a very very long time), at 1/10th the cost.  The expected lifespan of such a fence?  Somewhere between 15 and 25 years.

Interestingly enough, we have a couple of existing fences that are built with the same materials we want to use, and are around 30 years old (and in pretty poor shape), so we can see exactly how they will look over time.

In our case, we are looking for something that will last until we are ready to replace it with something more permanent, like the plaster covered block wall.