Impact of Quality on Building Costs
Publication: Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 12, Issue 4
Abstract
Quality of design, material used and workmanship, affects the future operating, maintenance and rehabilitation costs of infrastructure; however, the extent to which quality affects these costs has never been explicitly quantified. The research described in this paper represents a major study in this area and significantly advances the understanding of the impact of quality upon building costs. Building design, construction, operating, maintenance and rehabilitation cost data for 215 buildings were collected from all available sources in the Canadian Department of National Defence. A metric was developed to measure quality in the design, construction, and operating and maintenance phases of a building’s service life. An analysis of variance of annual equivalent total costs, for the first of building service life, clearly indicated that quality had a major impact on total costs when the influence of all other potential factors, particularly age, was minimized or removed. It was found that quality, in particular design quality, has the greatest demonstrable impact on building maintenance and rehabilitation costs.
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Acknowledgments
The writers would like to acknowledge the support of the Canadian Department of National Defence, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the M. Patrick Gillin Chair in Construction Engineering and Management at the University of New Brunswick, and the Province of New Brunswick Women’s Doctoral Scholarship ProgrammeNRC.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 12 • Issue 4 • December 2006
Pages: 199 - 206
Copyright
© 2006 ASCE.
History
Received: May 25, 2004
Accepted: Jul 1, 2005
Published online: Dec 1, 2006
Published in print: Dec 2006
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