How Durable Are Zinc Products?
Today, zinc products used in architecture for roofs and walls have an extremely long service life: an estimated 80 to100 years for roofs, and 200 to 300 years for walls, depending on the exact product, geographic location and local conditions, including the amount of air pollution. Durability is a key component of sustainability. The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines Life Cycle Cost as the total discounted dollar cost of owning, operating, maintaining and disposing of a building or building system over a period of time. The service life over which zinc materials are evaluated is much longer than with almost any other building material. Durability is not only a matter of simple longevity, but also of the costs necessary in maintaining a material throughout its life, and those involved in disposing of it at the end (or, ideally, at the beginning of its use in yet another product). To take roofs as an example, in a 2004 study conducted by Ducker International, owners
