INTRODUCTION to Life Cycle Costing of Civil Engineering Infrastructure:

Various research have thought-about life cycle environmental impacts from the housing sector (e.g. Adalberth, 1997; Adalberth et al., 2001; Peuportier, 2001; Asif et al., 2007; Hacker et al., 2008; Hammond and Jones, 2008; Bribián et al., 2009; Oritz et al, 2009; Mohan and Powell, 2010; Cuéllar-Franca and Azapagic, 2012) however the life cycle prices have seldom been addressed.

And but, financial facets corresponding to housing prices and affordability are necessary for the sustainable growth of the residential development sector. The housing sector is essential for the UK economic system because it immediately impacts the financial progress (HC, 2008).

For instance, in 2010, the development trade contributed 8.5% of the UK’s complete gross home product (GDP) of £1.45 trillion, to which the residential sector contributed 40% (UKCG, 2009).

After Denmark and Greece, the UK has the best housing costs throughout the European Union with individuals spending round 40% of their earnings on housing prices corresponding to mortgage funds and power payments (Eurostat, 2012).

The latter is the reason for gasoline poverty of round six million households owing to the rising power costs (DECC, 2009; Bolton, 2010).

In recent times, many individuals have been unable to buy a house due to adjustments within the availability and forms of monetary and mortgage merchandise (Sergeant, 2011; DCLG, 2012; RICS, 2012).

This example has created an unstable housing market, which has led to a fall in home costs, and dragged the UK economic system additional into recession.

For instance, the typical home value of round £190,000 in 2008 fell to £160,000 in 2011 (HPUK, 2012). House possession can be declining and in 2011 it dropped to 66% from 70.9% in 2003; so the proportion of households that personal their very own houses has fallen again to the place it was in 1989 (BBC, 2012).

This development is anticipated to proceed over the following 10 years (Sergeant, 2011). Such a scenario is affecting significantly younger individuals – solely 10% of all proprietor occupiers are beneath 35 years of age (BBC, 2012) whereas 33% of first-time consumers are over 35 (DCLG, 2012).

It’s subsequently necessary to grasp the total prices of housing and their fundamental sources alongside the entire provide chain.

That is the topic of this chapter, which units out to estimate the life cycle prices of the present housing inventory within the UK and determine value discount alternatives.

Three typical forms of homes are thought-about: indifferent, semi-detached and terraced homes (Utley and Shorrock, 2008).

This work enhances a earlier examine on life cycle environmental impacts of the present housing inventory within the UK (Cuéllar-Franca and Azapagic, 2012), that are additionally briefly mentioned later within the chapter as a part of an enchancment evaluation.

So far as the authors are conscious, that is the primary life cycle value examine of the housing sector within the UK. Elsewhere, solely two life cycle costing (LCC) research of particular person homes have been present in literature, one primarily based in Finland (Hasan et al., 2008) and one other within the USA (Keoleian et al., 2000).

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