Vinyl Cladding Installation Services QLD 2026 - Get Quotes

The Honest Value Case for Vinyl

Everything worth saying about vinyl cladding starts with paint, or rather with the absence of it. The colour is through the material rather than on it, so the wall is never painted, and a Queensland house that would otherwise be repainted every eight to twelve years simply is not. Each of those repaints costs somewhere between six and eighteen thousand dollars depending on the size of the house and the access, which means the material buys back its premium over two cycles and keeps going. No other property of the material matters as much as that piece of arithmetic. Everything below either supports it or explains the conditions under which it stops applying. Alternatives are compared on the exterior wall cladding page, which covers the layers every clad wall needs regardless of the face material.

Set that against what fibre cement genuinely costs over the same period. Fibre cement is the state's default cladding and deservedly so, and it arrives primed rather than finished, which means paying a painter at installation and again every decade or so after that. Comparing a vinyl rate against an unpainted fibre cement rate is the most common error owners make, and the fibre cement cladding page sets out what the painting side adds. Add the paint to both sides of the comparison and the numbers look quite different. That does not make vinyl the right answer, and it does make the comparison an honest one.

The second real advantage is that it does not rot, corrode or feed termites. Timber cladding in Queensland is a maintenance relationship, metal near the coast is a corrosion conversation, and vinyl is indifferent to all of it. Water running down a vinyl wall does nothing at all to the vinyl. The frame behind still needs protecting, so termite management remains as necessary as ever, but the face of the wall is genuinely inert. Owners replacing a rotted timber wall usually notice that difference within the first wet season.

Where vinyl falls short is appearance and perception, and it is worth being blunt. It reads as vinyl to most eyes at close range, the profiles are shallower than timber or fibre cement equivalents, and on a character house or in a traditional street it looks wrong in a way that is hard to unsee. Resale perception in some Queensland suburbs is also a genuine factor rather than snobbery, since buyers in character areas actively look for original or sympathetic materials. On a newer estate house or a rental in a mixed street, none of that applies. Judge it against the street rather than against a brochure. Owners wanting a traditional board line on a character house are better served by the weatherboard replacement page.

Insulated vinyl, which carries a moulded foam backing bonded to the panel, sits above plain vinyl at $65 to $130 per square metre supplied. The foam adds a modest amount of thermal performance, stiffens the panel so it lies flatter and resists impact better, and reduces the hollow sound that plain vinyl makes in wind or rain. Whether the thermal gain justifies the premium depends on whether the wall behind it has any insulation at all, which on most pre-1990 Queensland houses it does not. Real insulation belongs in the wall cavity rather than on the outside of the cladding. The stiffness and the acoustics are the better arguments for the upgrade. Owners preferring a genuinely low maintenance metal face will find the aluminium cladding page covers that option instead.

Who vinyl suits is reasonably easy to describe. Owners who have repainted once and do not want to do it again, investors holding a property where ongoing maintenance cost matters more than street appeal, houses in mixed or newer streets with no overlay, and anyone recladding a lowset house on a budget who wants the job finished rather than primed. Who it does not suit is equally clear, covering bushfire mapped properties, cyclonic sites without a rated product, character overlays and anyone who will be irritated by how it looks up close. Being honest about which list you are on saves a great deal of money.

Nobody selling the product will make that assessment on your behalf, which is why it is worth making it before the first site visit. An installer who opens by asking how long you intend to own the house is doing you a service rather than qualifying a lead. That question separates somebody selling a product from somebody advising on a wall. Both exist in this market and they are easy to tell apart once you know to listen for it.

Heat, Thermal Movement and Why It Must Hang Loose

This is the section that decides whether a vinyl wall succeeds, and it is entirely about temperature. Vinyl expands and contracts substantially as it heats and cools, considerably more than fibre cement, timber or metal, and a long board on a north or west facing Queensland wall in February moves a visible amount between morning and mid afternoon. The whole system is designed around that movement rather than in spite of it. Every part of a correct installation exists to let the boards move freely, and every shortcut removes one of those allowances. Read this section before comparing any two quotes. The difference between two prices on this material is often the difference between these allowances being made and being skipped.

Boards are hung rather than fixed, which is the concept most installers new to the product get wrong. Each panel locks into the one below and is nailed through a slotted flange at the top, and the nail is driven to leave a small gap under its head so the panel can slide sideways beneath it. A nail driven tight pins the board in place, and the board then has nowhere to go when it expands, so it bows outward between the fixings. Tight nailing is the origin of the waviness people associate with cheap vinyl, and it is almost always an installation fault rather than a product one.

Nails go in the centre of the slot rather than at either end, for the same reason. Centring the fastener lets the panel move in both directions as temperature rises and falls, while a nail hard against one end of the slot allows movement in one direction only and binds in the other. Competent installers also work from the centre of a run outward on long walls. None of this is difficult and all of it is invisible once the wall is up.

Gaps at every end are the third allowance and the one most often shortchanged. Panels sit inside receiving channels at corners, around openings and at terminations, and the manufacturer specifies a deliberate gap between the end of the panel and the back of the channel so there is room for the panel to grow. That gap is larger in warm climates and larger again where installation happens on a cool day, since the panel will only get longer from there. Installers cutting panels to a tight fit have guaranteed buckling. Ask what end gap the manual specifies and whether it was adjusted for the temperature on the day. A crew that cannot answer the second half of that question has not been working to the manual.

Everything fixed through the vinyl follows the same logic. Light fittings, taps, meter boxes, downpipe brackets, air conditioning penetrations and security cameras all need mounting blocks that allow the cladding to move behind or around them rather than being screwed hard through a panel. A fixing driven straight through vinyl into the frame pins that panel permanently at one point. Good installers fit purpose made mounting blocks as they go. Walk a finished wall and look at how fittings are mounted, since that detail is visible and diagnostic. Downpipe brackets are the most common offender, so the gutter and downpipe work is worth coordinating with the cladding.

Colour, Fading and the Dark Tone Problem

Queensland ultraviolet is harder on coloured plastic than on almost anything else, and colour retention is where product quality separates most visibly. Quality vinyl carries ultraviolet inhibitors and a formulation designed to hold colour, and cheaper product does not, with the difference appearing as chalky, faded panels on the exposed elevations after several years while the sheltered walls stay closer to original. That mismatch is worse than uniform fading because it looks like a defect rather than age. Ask what the warranty says about fade specifically rather than about the product generally.

Dark colours carry a genuine technical constraint on this material. A dark surface absorbs considerably more heat than a pale one, which on vinyl means more thermal movement and, in extreme cases, distortion of the panel itself. Manufacturers respond either by restricting the darkest colours in their standard ranges or by supplying them in a modified compound built to cope, sometimes with a reflective backing or a different polymer blend. If a dark colour is wanted on a Queensland wall, the question is not whether it is available but whether the specific product is approved for that exposure. A supplier who cannot answer that has not read their own documentation. Get the approval for the specific colour and exposure confirmed in writing before ordering.

Orientation deserves thinking about at colour selection rather than afterwards. Western and northern elevations in this state take a punishing amount of afternoon sun, and a colour that looks well judged on a sample card behaves differently across a large sun struck wall. Pale and mid tones are the safer selections for a wall taking that much afternoon sun. Using a darker feature on a sheltered elevation or across a small area is the sensible compromise. Look at a finished house in the same colour before committing rather than relying on a card. Afternoon light on a large wall is the only fair test of a colour selection.

Cleaning is the entire maintenance programme on a vinyl wall, and it amounts to very little. An annual wash with water and a soft brush removes the dust, pollen and general grime that otherwise dulls the surface, and a mild detergent handles anything stubborn. Pressure washing is the wrong tool, since it can force water behind panels built to drain rather than to seal. Mould and algae on shaded southern walls respond to a gentle proprietary wash. Nothing else is required of the owner, which is precisely the point of the material.

Fire and Wind: The Two Queensland Limits

Vinyl is a combustible material and that fact governs where it can be used. It softens, melts and burns rather than resisting flame, which is why bushfire mapped land is generally not vinyl territory at all. On land carrying a bushfire attack level rating, the construction standard for those areas sets out what external wall materials are acceptable at each level, and vinyl does not appear on that list in the way the dense hardwood species, meaning heavy close grained timbers such as spotted gum and red ironbark, and the non combustible products do. Bushfire prone land covers a very large portion of Queensland, from the Granite Belt through the ranges and out into the western fringes.

Owners in those areas should establish the mapping position before considering anything else about the wall. A property that is mapped has effectively had its cladding decision made for it already, and the alternatives perform well in exactly those conditions. Checking the mapping takes a single enquiry to the council and saves an entire design cycle. Doing it first is the cheapest step in the whole project.

Boundary proximity raises the same question in suburban settings. Walls close to a boundary may carry a fire resistance requirement depending on the building and the separation, and a combustible cladding on such a wall is a certification problem rather than a preference. This is a question for a building certifier before anything is ordered, not a matter for the installer to resolve on site. Owners who reclad a boundary wall in vinyl without checking occasionally discover the problem at sale. Fire safety information for Queensland households is published by Queensland Fire and Emergency Services. Certifiers deal with boundary separation questions routinely and can settle yours in one conversation.

Wind is the second limit and it is the one most often missed. Vinyl systems carry wind ratings determined by testing, and a great many of the products sold in Australia are rated for the non cyclonic classifications that cover the southeast rather than the cyclonic classifications that apply from around Bundaberg north. This is not a small technicality, because once a panel system starts unlatching under pressure the failure runs along the elevation. Where a site sits in a cyclonic classification, the product must carry a documented rating for it and the fixing schedule must match. Request that documentation in writing rather than accepting an assurance.

Establishing both answers costs nothing and saves the whole project. Your council confirms whether the land is bushfire mapped and at what rating, while a certifier or engineer establishes the wind classification for the site. Those two facts determine whether vinyl is even a candidate, which is why this page puts them before the pricing rather than after. Owners in the southeast on unmapped land will usually find both answers straightforward. Owners further north or on the ranges frequently find that the material choice has been made for them. That is not a bad outcome, since the alternatives on the fibre cement cladding page perform well in exactly those conditions.

Over-Cladding an Existing Wall

Vinyl is frequently installed over an existing wall rather than instead of one, which is both its most attractive use and its most consequential. Battens go over the old cladding, vinyl goes over the battens, and a tired weatherboard or fibro house gets a new face without the cost and disruption of a strip out. It costs $95 to $190 per square metre, avoids demolition and disposal entirely, and produces a finished wall in a fraction of the time. The catch is that it hides whatever was underneath, permanently and completely.

That concealment matters most on a pre-1990 house. Older Queensland sheeting is frequently asbestos cement, and covering it rather than removing it is a legitimate approach that avoids disturbance, though it leaves the material in place for a future owner or renovator to deal with, and any battening involves fixing through it. Testing first through asbestos testing and inspection tells everybody what they are working with, and where removal is the better long term answer the asbestos removal page covers it. Disclosing what is under the vinyl at sale is both sensible and expected. Document the decision and keep the test results with the house papers. A future owner or renovator will need to know what sits behind the vinyl.

Termite and rot damage hidden by a new outer skin is the second concealment problem and it is the one owners regret most. Covering a wall means nobody sees the frame again, so existing damage continues unobserved and new activity goes unnoticed for years rather than months. A current termite inspection before over-cladding is genuinely important rather than merely advisable. Any soft or damaged framing found should be dealt with before a single batten goes up.

Access for future inspection matters more once a wall is covered, not less. Keeping the base of the wall clear of soil, mulch and paving leaves somebody a place to look, and photographing the frame before the battens go on records what was there. Damage discovered later behind an over-clad wall is handled through termite damage repairs once the vinyl comes off. Repairs to the cladding itself sit on the cladding repairs page. Neither of those conversations is one an owner wants to have a second time.

Comparing over-cladding against a full reclad is worth doing properly. Stripping the old wall is dearer and slower, and nothing else lets the framing be examined and mended, takes insulation and a membrane, and puts fresh flashings around every window, which the house recladding page covers in detail. Over-cladding buys appearance and maintenance relief while leaving the wall's performance essentially unchanged. Neither is wrong, and the choice depends on whether the wall behind is sound. A house with no insulation and original wiring gets far more from a strip out than from a new face. The reclad sequence and the upgrades available at that moment are set out in detail on the recladding page.

Practical over-cladding details deserve attention because they are easy to get wrong. Building the wall outward by forty or fifty millimetres changes the relationship with windows, doors, eaves, downpipes and meter boxes, so window reveals need extending, flashings need reworking to shed water over the new face rather than behind it, and the eave overhang may end up narrower than it was. Downpipes, taps, light fittings and air conditioning penetrations all need relocating outward. A competent installer walks the house and lists every one of these before quoting. A quote produced without that walk will discover them during the job. Window reveals in particular need extending, which the window replacement page is worth reading alongside where frames are due anyway.

Hail, Impact and Individual Panel Repairs

Southeast Queensland gets serious hail and vinyl has a mixed record against it. Large stones can crack or hole a panel, and the damage is a clean break rather than a dent, which looks worse at a glance and is considerably easier to fix. Ladders leaned against a wall, cricket balls, mowers throwing stones and whipper snippers all produce similar localised damage. Vinyl also becomes more brittle in cold conditions, which matters more on the Granite Belt and the Downs than on the coast.

Impact damage through winter is consequently more likely out west than anywhere along the coastal strip. Spare panels earn their shelf space for that reason as much as for hail. A cracked panel on an outbuilding can wait for a convenient moment, while one on a street facing wall usually cannot. Having the replacement already sitting in the shed turns that from a job into an afternoon.

The repair method is genuinely the material's best feature and very few owners know about it. A purpose made unlocking tool releases the interlock between courses, so a single damaged panel can be unhooked, slid out and replaced without disturbing the rest of the wall, typically for $180 to $520 including the call out. No patching, no painting and no visible repair. Compare that with a cracked fibre cement sheet, which needs replacing and repainting to match. Being able to spot repair a wall in an hour is worth something in a hail prone suburb.

Colour matching a replacement panel is the one complication and it is manageable with foresight. A panel that has been on the wall for eight years has faded slightly, so a brand new panel of the same colour code will read fresher than its neighbours, particularly on an exposed elevation. The practical answer is to keep several spare panels from the original installation, kept flat and shaded, which then sit reasonably close to the weathered wall. Have the installer leave spares at completion rather than taking the offcuts away.

Sorting that out on the last day pays off more here than with any other cladding in this series. Store the panels somewhere dry where they will not be cleared out during a future tidy up, and keep them lying flat rather than leaning against a wall. Labelling the bundle with the product name and the colour code is worth the two minutes with a marker. Whoever owns the house next will be glad somebody did it.

Storm damage claims on vinyl walls follow the ordinary path. Photograph the damage before anything is touched, get the assessment done, and keep the product details so a matching panel can be sourced, which the storm damage repairs page covers alongside the insurance sequencing. Replacing a whole affected elevation gives a better colour result than scattering new panels through old ones. Discontinued colours are the real risk on an older wall. Keeping spares from day one answers that problem before it arises.

Warranties Worth Reading

Vinyl warranties sound generous and reward actual reading. Long terms are common and frequently pro-rata, meaning the value declines each year so a claim in year twenty recovers a fraction of what a claim in year three would, and the practical protection is front loaded. Fade is often treated separately from structural defect, with its own definition of what counts as excessive and its own measurement method. None of that is unreasonable, and all of it is worth knowing before rather than after.

Whether the warranty transfers to a new owner matters if there is any chance you will sell. Some warranties transfer to a subsequent owner once, some do not transfer at all, and some require registration within a set period after installation which nobody remembers to do. Registering the warranty at completion takes minutes and is the sort of task that never gets done later. Ask the installer whether registration is required and who does it.

Installation is almost always a condition of the product warranty. Manufacturers state that the panels must be installed to their published manual, which is precisely why the loose hanging, nail position and end gap details earlier in this page matter commercially as well as physically. A wall that buckles because it was nailed tight is an installation failure rather than a product defect, and the manufacturer will say so. That makes the installer's warranty on their own workmanship as important as the product warranty. Get both in writing with their terms and durations stated.

Consumer protections sit underneath all of it regardless of what a warranty document says. Consumer guarantees under Australian Consumer Law are overseen by the ACCC and apply to both the goods and the service, and a manufacturer's warranty adds to those rights rather than replacing them. Work above the statutory threshold requires a QBCC licensee with statutory insurance evidenced. Verify the licence on the regulator's own register before any deposit changes hands.

Approvals are worth confirming alongside the licence. Recladding in the same position is usually maintenance rather than building work, while a boundary wall, a bushfire rated property or any change to the wall build up can bring requirements into play. Licensing and approval information is indexed at ABLIS, with your council the authority on overlays. Establishing that before ordering avoids the worst version of the conversation.

Where something goes wrong there is a path that does not start with a solicitor. Raise the matter in writing with the contractor first, since that step is both sensible and generally expected, and unresolved domestic building disputes in this state can then proceed to QCAT once the relevant process has been followed. Photographs taken along the way are particularly valuable on vinyl, since buckling is easy to document and easy to date. Keeping the contract, the product details and the images together makes any process shorter. Very few vinyl cladding jobs get anywhere near one.

What Vinyl Cladding Costs in Queensland

Supply runs $38 to $85 per square metre for plain vinyl profiles and $65 to $130 for insulated or foam backed product. Installed on a straightforward wall the figure lands between $85 and $170, and over-cladding an existing wall on battens runs $95 to $190 because of the extra layer and the reworking of every junction. Trims, corners and channels add $25 to $65 per lineal metre and are not optional. A whole lowset house commonly totals $14,000 to $38,000.

Comparing that against alternatives needs the paint included on both sides. Fibre cement at a similar installed rate arrives primed and needs painting now and again every decade, which on a whole house is a five figure item each time. Over two repaint cycles the vinyl figure and the fibre cement figure converge and then cross. That crossover point is the honest financial argument for vinyl, and no other argument carries the same weight. Owners who plan to sell within five years will not reach it.

The lines that move a quote are worth identifying. The number of corners and openings drives trim quantity, which on a house with many windows is a substantial part of the total, and over-cladding adds the batten layer plus the extension of every reveal and the relocation of every fitting. Two storey elevations add an access line for scaffold or a platform. Cyclonic rated product where required costs more than standard. Have trims, battens, access and any relocations itemised rather than folded into a rate.

Insulated vinyl is worth pricing both ways before deciding. The foam backing adds $25 to $50 per square metre and delivers modest thermal benefit, real stiffness and a quieter wall, which on a plain vinyl wall in wind or rain is a noticeable improvement. Should the wall cavity behind hold no insulation at all, spending the same money on batts during a strip out delivers far more thermal benefit than foam backing on the outside. That comparison favours the reclad route on an uninsulated house. Where an existing wall is simply being covered over, foam backing is the only thermal improvement available at all.

Around Queensland

Brisbane and the southeast are where most Queensland vinyl cladding is installed, and the reasons are straightforward. Wind classifications across most of the metropolitan area are non cyclonic, a great deal of the middle and outer suburban belt falls outside bushfire mapping, and there is a large stock of post war fibro and weatherboard where over-cladding appeals. The inner suburbs work against it, since a street facing vinyl wall on a pre-1947 house inside a character area is rarely appropriate and may not be permitted at all. Hail is a real consideration across the southeast and an argument for keeping spare panels.

Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast conditions suit vinyl reasonably well in one respect and test it in another. Salt does nothing at all to vinyl, which is a genuine advantage over metal and over painted surfaces near the water, and the fixings behind still need to be corrosion resistant. Against that, coastal ultraviolet is intense and exposed elevations fade faster, which makes product quality and the fade warranty worth more attention here. Beachfront wind exposure also raises the rating question even outside the cyclonic band.

From Bundaberg north the conversation changes fundamentally. Cyclonic wind classifications apply, a good many vinyl systems have never been tested for them, and unless the product holds documented approval with a fixing schedule to match, it is out. Owners in Mackay, Townsville and Cairns should establish that before doing anything else. Even where a rated system exists, the installation requirements are stricter than in the southeast. Local builders will generally steer toward other materials in that band for good reason. Taking that advice seriously is cheaper than discovering the rating problem at certification.

Toowoomba, the Downs and the Granite Belt bring the widest temperature swings in Queensland along with the state's genuine cold. Greater daily movement means the loose hanging and end gap allowances matter even more than on the coast, and vinyl is more brittle at low temperatures so winter impact damage is more likely. Bushfire mapping is also extensive through the ranges, which rules vinyl out on a considerable number of properties. Owners out here should confirm the mapping before considering colours. Freight on bulky profiles is a real line in regional quotes. Ordering trims and spares in the same delivery matters more the further out the property sits.

Choosing a Vinyl Cladding Installer

Vinyl is unforgiving of installers who treat it like any other cladding, which makes specific experience with the product more important here than on most materials. A crew that installs vinyl regularly hangs boards loose without thinking about it, centres nails, sets end gaps by the manual and fits mounting blocks for every fitting, while a capable general cladding crew may do most of that from first principles and miss one. Ask how many vinyl houses they have done and whose system they are trained on. Several manufacturers run installer accreditation and it is worth asking about. Accredited installers also tend to have better access to matching replacement panels years later.

Older work tells you more than recent work on this material. Any wall completed last month looks fine almost regardless of method, because the buckling from tight nailing appears after the first hot spell, so ask to see a wall the installer finished several summers ago and look along it in the afternoon. A folder of aged installations is the strongest reference available here. An installer confident enough to send you to a five year old job has a method they trust.

Make the quote carry its specification rather than a rate. The manufacturer and product name, the profile and colour with confirmation it is approved for the exposure, the wind rating and whether it suits the site classification, the bushfire position, trims and channels itemised, battens and the over-clad build out where relevant, mounting blocks for fittings, flashing rework at every opening, the fixing schedule, spare panels left at completion, and both warranties with their terms. A quote answering that list describes a wall that stays flat. A rate per square metre describes an intention.

What to Look Out For

The clearest warning sign is an installer who talks about vinyl as if it were fibre cement. Any crew fixing this material needs to volunteer the movement conversation, because hanging boards loose, centring nails in their slots and leaving end gaps are the whole method rather than refinements to it. Ask how the panels accommodate expansion and listen for specifics. A vague answer predicts a wavy wall by the end of the first summer.

Be cautious where nobody has raised bushfire mapping or wind classification. Both are threshold questions rather than details, both are answered by a council or a certifier rather than a supplier, and a quote silent on either has skipped the step that decides whether the material is permitted at all. That is especially true north of Bundaberg and through the ranges. Request the wind rating documentation in writing wherever a cyclonic classification applies.

Treat over-cladding a pre-1990 house without testing as the point to pause. Covering asbestos sheeting rather than removing it can be a legitimate decision, and making that decision without knowing what the material is cannot, particularly since battening involves fixing through it. The same applies to over-cladding without a termite inspection, since the frame disappears from view for good. Both checks cost a few hundred dollars against a job measured in tens of thousands.

Watch for trims, channels and mounting blocks quietly absent from the scope. They are individually modest, collectively significant on a house with many corners and windows, and the difference between a wall that looks finished and one that looks improvised. Generic substitutes for the system's own trims also affect both appearance and the warranty. Have the trim schedule itemised line by line rather than folded into a rate. Ask specifically about mounting blocks for taps, lights and downpipe brackets.

Collect the paperwork as the job proceeds and store the spares somewhere sensible. You want whoever made it and what the product is called, the profile with its colour code, the documentation supporting the wind rating, the fastener schedule, both warranties with their registration actually completed, any laboratory results and clearance certificates where an older wall was involved, images of the framing and battens before the vinyl covered them, and several panels laid flat well away from sunlight. Spare panels count for more on this material than on anything else in the series, because a faded wall will never match freshly manufactured stock and colours get withdrawn. Anyone conducting building inspections treats a full file as a sign the house has been properly kept.

How to Get Comparable Quotes

Send photographs of every elevation plus the wall area, the number of storeys, and close ups of corners, windows and anything fixed to the walls. Give your postcode so wind classification and bushfire mapping context arrives with the enquiry, and say whether the house predates 1990 since that invites the testing conversation early. State whether you want the existing wall stripped or over-clad, or ask for both priced. Note how long you expect to own the house, because the value case depends on it.

Ask every installer the same structured questions so the answers line up. Product and manufacturer, colour approval for the exposure, wind rating against your classification, bushfire position, trims and channels, battens and build out, mounting blocks, flashing rework, fixing schedule, spares at completion and both warranties. Add the expansion question to every conversation. A uniform brief quietly filters for installers working to a manual rather than to habit, which is the sorting mechanism this whole series relies on.

Set the methods against each other first, and when you weigh vinyl against another material make sure painting sits in both columns. Two vinyl submissions naming the same product, the same wind rating, the same trim schedule and the same installation method are genuinely competing on price. One that comes in lower by exactly the trims, the mounting blocks and the rated product has quoted a different wall, and the earlier sections describe what that wall looks like by February. Pay for the approach and the wall stays flat for as long as the house is yours.