ANALYSIS
WHOLE-OF-LIFE
COSTING PART ONE - AN INTRODUCTION
WHOLE-OF-LIFE COSTING OR LIFE CYCLE COSTING HAS, OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS, BECOME INCREASINGLY REQUESTED BY CLIENTS OF QUANTITY SURVEYORS. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING AND WHAT IS THE SKILL AND KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY TO MEET CLIENT’S NEEDS? WHAT IS WHOLE-OF-LIFE COSTING As Quantity Surveyors, we are familiar with capital costs, but the total costs of a project from start to finish can often be ignored. Whole-of-life costing is the process which determines all of the costs of owning a building including initial
capital expenditure, operational and maintenance costs and disposal costs. These costs will occur over the lifetime of a building and the decisions made at the start of a project will affect these costs.
undertaken. The risks in the estimation of future costs can be reduced by the application of forecasting techniques. The main technique used is to apply historical costs from similar projects.
Whole-of-life costing is necessarily a forecasting exercise and, as such, can be a black art. The uncertainty of future costs necessitates that risk analysis be
For example, the cost of painting a door is easily known, so the future cost of repainting a door over the life of a building is easily predicted. The difficult
42 - SEPTEMBER 2018 - THE BUILDING ECONOMIST
