About

This section provides a general overview of the LCC tool and its features, explaining the main sections and highlighting the input data.

	A SHORT VIDEO TUTORAIL OF THE LIFE CYCLE COST TOOL Watch the online video tutorial of the life cycle cost tool. Federico Garzia from EURAC will guide you through the main functions of the tool in 11 minutes.
NORMS AND STANDARDS The data collection, within the tool, is organized following as a base reference the LCC structure introduced by the Standard ISO 15686-5:2017 (Buildings and constructed assets -- Service life planning -- Part 5: Life-cycle costing). Furthermore, the source used to structure the construction costs is the European Code of Measurement, elaborated by the European Committee of the Construction Economists. Regarding the analysis of maintenance costs of HVAC systems, this is based on standard values from EN 15459:2018, which provides yearly maintenance costs for each element, including operation, repair, and service, as a percentage of the initial construction cost. Lifespan for system replacement is also provided by the norm. The ISO 15686-5:2017 groups the costs: the LCC analysis includes the processes from point 2 to 5, and it deals with the activities connected with the design, construction and operation of the building. End-of-life costs (process 6 in the table) have not been implemented in the tool yet. The Whole Life Cost (WLC) includes also the process 1, with the non-construction cost (e.g. cost of land, enabling activities) and the needed fees for allowing the set-up of the building from the technical and administrative point of view.
	GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF LCC TOOL SECTIONS The LCC tool is composed by 6 sheets “Project information”, “WLC”, “Construction cost”, “Calc maintenance”, “Results” and “Charts. The first 4 sheets are devoted to receive input values, the last 2 display the results of the calculation.
PROJECT INFORMATION - Part I In this first input sheet general data about the analyzed building is collected, together with those boundary conditions needed for the LCC calculation. In the first section data about surfaces and volumes need to be provided. Following, data from the energy calculation is required. First, a reference area must be provided. The definition of “Treated floor area” comes from PHPP, the energy calculation tool used during the data collection campaign. If another tool is used for the energy calculation, the net floor area should be provided instead. The input parameters from “Average U-value opaque components” to “ PV installed capacity” are not essential for the LCC calculation, since they are used to calculate indicators. A section, which provides a check on the building construction costs, was also integrated to support the data collection. In this way it is possible to verify the correctness of data inserted in the “Construction cost” sheet comparing the sum of those values with the total cost (design + construction) inserted manually (if already available from a separate calculation).
	PROJECT INFORMATION - Part II Economic boundary conditions are collected in this section (Figure 5). This permits the calculation of actualized energy and maintenance costs over the building life span. Essential for the calculation are interest rate, the fuel prices and their average annual price increase.Finally, data about energy consumption (kWh/m2) and production in (kWh) must be provided, in order to determine operational cost.
PROJECT INFORMATION - Part III (Variants) Variants can be investigated. Two buttons, also present in the other sheets, permit to display up to 2 variants. In this way different input values can be compared.
	WHOLE LIFE COST (WLC) - Part I In this sheet non-construction cost and costs related to building design process are collected. This data, together with the construction cost collected in the next sheet “Construction cost” and the calculated O&M costs, build the WLC. In the first section non-construction costs such as cost of land, enabling costs and planning fees can be provided. Two columns are available to split the costs and to maintain a better overview, if required by the specific cost structure. • Cost of lands: costs of land (and the volume allowed to be built). • Price: unitary price of land. • Enabling costs: cost for site preparation works that might take place prior to work under the main construction contract. This could include: demolition, site clearance, tree protection, diversion and / or disconnection of existing site services, geotechnical and exploratory ground investigation, decoupling from existing buildings, decontamination, ground improvement and /or compaction, excavation of known below-ground obstructions, survey work, creation of access routes, perimeter fencing and security provisions, work to neighboring buildings, discharging planning conditions that must be satisfied prior to construction commencing, historical architectural investigation fieldwork, access ramps, signage provisions, provision of statutory utilities to the site). • Planning fees: taxes and fees to be paid for getting the permissions and fulfil the administrative issues • User support costs: it includes all the cost for the support activities during the organization phase (management of the property, helpdesk and IT services, general administration issues). • Finance Costs: costs related to the interest or costs of money (in case of bank loan).
WHOLE LIFE COST (WLC) - Part II In the second section of the WLC sheet, design costs should be provided, divided in preliminary, definitive and executive design. Standard cost typologies are displayed, nevertheless if required, other costs can be added starting from line 27. Building site management costs are also included in this sheet. These are costs for the general building site management, in terms of supervision of the activities, organization and cost for the general equipment (e.g. crane, scaffolding, etc.). Please, insert here the cost of the equipment when it deals with the general building site operation, while insert in the sheet “Construction cost”, in the cells related to “Other Costs” when it deals with a particular building element (e.g. use of a special crane for mounting a prefabricated element). In the same way as in the previous sheet, also here it is possible to display up to 2 variants to be analyzed.
	CONSTRUCTION COST In this section a detailed breakdown of construction costs is required. On the left side a brief description of the single layer and the corresponding area can be inserted (arrow n.1). Cost of the materials, labor costs and other costs can be provide. In the case of material costs, either aggregated costs or unitary price can be provided (arrow n.2). If a breakdown of material and labor costs is not available, the global cost (construction cost) must be inserted in the yellow section “Materials”.
RESULTS In this sheet the results of the LCC calculation are provided. The results have been divided summarizing building elements, building services, whole life costs, construction and operation.
	RESULTS Finally, in the sheet “Charts” the numerical results can be displayed in graphical way.
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