Finance Calculators
Home Running Costs Calculator
A home costs money every year whether or not anything goes wrong. This page adds up the scheduled services — each cost spread over the interval it comes round on — and a repair reserve the reader sets as a share of the home's value, so the year's upkeep arrives as one figure instead of a series of surprises.
Calculator
How the annual cost is worked out
Each service's cost is spread over the interval it comes round on — a visit every three years counts a third of itself each year. The annualised services are summed, the repair reserve is the home value times the assumed percentage, and the two together give the total annual running cost.
About This Calculator
What It Does
This calculator works out what a home costs to run in a year. Enter the home's value and the repair-reserve percentage you hold against it, then for each scheduled system — heating and cooling, water heater, roof, gutters and appliances — the interval you service it on and what one visit costs. Each cost is annualised from its interval, the five are summed, and the reserve is added to give one yearly figure. Every number is either your own input or the reserve assumption, which the page labels as such.
Worked Example
The page opens with a 350,000 home and a 1 % repair reserve, which is 3,500 a year. Heating and cooling, water heater and gutters are each serviced every year, at 150, 100 and 200 — 450 together. The roof is inspected every three years at 350, which is 116.67 a year, and appliances are serviced every two years at 250, which is 125 a year. The five services total 691.67 a year, and with the 3,500 reserve the page reports a total annual running cost of 4,191.67.
Real-World Usage
Use it before buying a home to set a yearly budget beside the mortgage payment, and after buying to check the reserve still covers the systems ageing at once. It also answers the service-contract question: if a plan costs less than the annualised visits it covers, the page shows the line it replaces.
Local Context
Running costs follow the home and its schedule rather than the country: intervals and visit prices are what local contractors charge, and the calculator carries no rate table. What varies by place is folded into the figures you enter — a colder climate services heating more often, a coastal one inspects the roof sooner. The reserve percentage stays an assumption the page labels as one, wherever the page is read.
Last reviewed: November 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is the annual running cost calculated?
Each system's service cost is annualised from its interval, so a roof inspection that costs 350 every three years counts 116.67 a year. The five systems are summed and the repair reserve is added to give one yearly figure.
Is the repair reserve percentage a market rate?
No. The percentage is a stated assumption, labelled as one on the page in every language. It starts at 1 % of the home's value and is yours to change to whatever share you are willing to hold for repairs.
Can I change the service intervals?
Yes — every interval is a choice from six months to five years. Set each system to the schedule you actually follow and the calculator annualises its cost from that schedule.