Life-Cycle Costing of Facilities

This article examines life-cycle costing issues, challenges, and opportunities, using mostly information from Harvard University and Mt. Vernon High School (IN) and concludes with reference to BIM (Building information modeling) as a technology to support life-cycle costing.

One of the keys to calculating the life-cycle costs of an education facility is gathering accurate data. The more data, the more confident planners are that their projections of long-term costs are reliable.

But assessing the effects of all the elements involved in a school project can be a headache as planners try to account for the consequences of each design choice. For instance, choosing a certain type of window glazing or altering the amount of glazing will affect how large a facility's heating and cooling system should be. A roof that includes solar panels will carry an additional cost, but it also will ease the energy an HVAC system will have to produce.

A planner trying to account for the effects of all the building characteristics soon can become entangled in a web of confusion as each slight change can alter countless other calculations. To provide education institutions with precise and accurate projections, design firms have turned to technology.

Building information modeling (BIM) technology enables designers to use computer programs to create a three-dimensional model of a planned facility. With a BIM program, a designer can ask “What if?” and see almost immediately how a design change — moving a wall, or re-orienting the building footprint — will affect the performance and costs of other aspects of the facility.