Renovation Costs Research Articles

Estimating Long-Term Care Costs among Thai Elderly: A Phichit Province Case Study.

Background Rural-urban inequality in long-term care (LTC) services has been increasing alongside rapid socioeconomic development. This study estimates the average spending on LTC services and identifies the factors that influence the use and cost of LTC for the elderly living in urban and rural areas of Thailand. Methods The sample comprised 837 elderly aged 60 years drawn from rural and urban areas in Phichit Province. Costs were assessed over a 1-month period. Direct costs of caregiving and indirect costs (opportunity cost method) were analyzed. Binary logistic regression was performed to determine which factors affected LTC costs. Results The total annual LTC spending for rural and urban residents was on average USD 7,285 and USD 7,280.6, respectively. Formal care and informal care comprise the largest share of payments. There was a significant association between rural residents and costs for informal care, day/night care, and home renovation. Conclusions Even though total LTC expenditures do not seem to vary significantly across rural and urban areas, the fundamental differences between areas need to be recognized. Reorganizing country delivery systems and finding a balance between formal and informal care are alternative solutions.

Benefits and costs of grazing various proportions of perennial ryegrass and chicory for dairy production

Understanding the economic trade-off between changes in the supplementary feed required and the cost of pasture renovation is important when considering investing in alternative forages. Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) is the main pasture species used for dairy production in temperate Australia. Alternatives to perennial ryegrass are grown to complement the seasonal growth pattern of perennial ryegrass, and to potentially increase annual dry matter (DM) yield. A case study analysis of a dairy farm in Gippsland was used to explore the benefits and costs over 15 years when either 0%, 20% or 40% of the milking area was sown to chicory (Cichorium intybus L.), with the balance sown to perennial ryegrass. Chicory was part of a 3-year pasture renovation cycle; in the year of establishment, annual ryegrass was sown in the autumn, with chicory sown in spring, followed by 27 months of production. This was compared with a 5-year renovation cycle of perennial ryegrass. Stocking rates of 3.3 and 2.5 cows/ha were modelled. A whole farm budget approach with stochastic simulation was used to quantify the potential effect on profit and risk. The profitability of growing chicory depended on the balance among (1) savings in supplementary feed costs during summer and autumn, and (2) possible reductions in the overall supply of DM during winter and early spring, and (3) increased pasture renovation costs. Stocking rate influenced the most profitable percentage of land sown to chicory. When stocking rate was 3.3 cows/ha, sowing 20% of the milking area to chicory returned a net present value (NPV) over 15 years AU$31 000 greater, on average, than did sowing 0% chicory, and AU$46 000 greater than sowing 40% chicory. With 2.5 cows/ha, sowing 40% of the milking area to chicory returned an NPV AU$39 000–AU$102 000 greater, on average, than did sowing either 20% or 0% chicory, respectively. The ratio of perennial ryegrass to chicory had little effect on the variability of NPV. For an individual farm, the most profitable percentage will fluctuate over time with variations in prices, seasonal conditions and management choices.

Rzeczowe zabezpieczenie wierzytelności morskich w międzywojennej Polsce

The costs of construction, purchase, renovation or operation of the ship, in particular related to port fees, fuel, crew pay and maintenance during the cruise were very high, therefore the owners of the vessel to finance the planned activities took loans against the ship or cargo . Undoubtedly, the development of maritime transport at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries contributed to the international unification of maritime law with regard to shipboard privileges and maritime mortgage. The need to harmonize the regulations resulted from the necessity of real assurance for creditors to satisfy their claims, because the diversity of regulations of individual countries, especially the number of maritime privileges that arose under the government of various legal systems and the hierarchy of their application limited the significance of the maritime mortgage institution. The content of international regulations became the basis for shaping Polish regulations regarding tangible security of maritime claims in the period of the PRL. It should be added that the maritime law of the interwar period in the available literature of the subject is only signaled, therefore this publication enriches publications on maritime claims.

DETERMINING BARRIERS IN SUSTAINABLE REFURBISHMENT PROJECTS: COMMERCIAL BUILDING OWNER PERSPECTIVES

Existing commercial buildings in Malaysia account for one third of the total electricity consumption. They present a great opportunity for refurbishment to reduce carbon dioxide. However, sustainably refurbished commercial buildings that is Green Building Index (GBI) certified is still low. This study aims to investigate barriers that impede commercial building owners to implement sustainable refurbishment and explore ways to increase numbers of sustainable refurbishment implementation. Qualitative data were collected through semistructured interviews. The respondents were commercial building owners’ representative, who were mainly building managers. The findings indicated that higher cost of sustainable refurbishment than conventional method and lacking of sustainability awareness among Malaysian were the main barriers of sustainable refurbishment. This study will be useful in helping building owners and developers to enhance economic, social and environmental benefits of sustainable refurbishment.

The ”Standard Tunnel Construction Method“ of Rhaetian Railways

AbstractThe Rhaetian Railways AG (RhB) operates an approximately 384 km long rail network, predominantly in the Canton of Graubünden (CH). With much of this rail network being situated in Alpine terrain, extensive engineering infrastructure is used; approx. 20 % of the entire rail system consists of such structures. The majority of these engineering structures are the 115 tunnels with a combined length of 58.7 km, constructed between 1901 and 1914. Due to the age of the tunnels, more than half of the 115 tunnels require renovation. The RhB has estimated that approximately 75 of these tunnel structures (with a combined length of approx. 26 km) will require extensive repair within the next 50 years. Thus a new standardized rehabilitation strategy was developed under the name ”Standard Tunnel Construction Method“ to ensure that the existing rail tunnels satisfy current tunnel design standards [1]. The primary goal of the ”Standard Tunnel Construction Method“ is to ensure that renovation costs are consistently lower compared to previous renovations by following a standardized workflow process. The primary challenges associated with such renovations are concerned with determining the extent of repair required for the tunnel as well as creating a feasible concept, which allows for the tunnel to be repaired while still remaining operational. Using the ”Standard Tunnel Construction Method“, it is possible to optimize the tunnel rehabilitation strategy while maximizing quality and minimizing monetary costs.

Estimating Mina Jaya Niaga 11 Ship Repair (In Man-hour) using Work Breakdown Structure

Mina Jaya Niaga fishing vessel procurement project were unsuccessful. There are 34 planned to be built but only 14 were able to be finished. Through the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, the government intended to use the vessels again. Based on the recent survey, Mina Jaya Niaga 11 is one of the five vessels which still worthy to be repaired. The government intended to use the vessel because there is still a potency of tuna fishing in Indonesia. The demand for tuna in the market is growed as Tuna is one of the high-value marine commodity and popular in the world. An economic feasibility study is likely to be conducted to analyze whether the vessel is feasible or not. The capital expenditure, one of the components to be used for feasibility study needed to be examined. The capital expenditure in this project is the estimation cost of the ship refurbishment. Work breakdown structure in order to categorize the vessel repairing aspect is used on this paper to estimating the vessel repair cost. The result of the repair cost is only the shipyard cost and the total man-hour is about 7910 hour.

Energy Burden Alleviation and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction: Can We Reach Two Objectives With One Policy?

In this article, we assess French current public policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and abate household energy burden, through a simulation of changes in residential sector characteristics over the long run. We build on an existing partial equilibrium model to take into consideration key determinants of excessive energy burden among vulnerable households. This analysis reveals that current public policies are not sufficient to reach the ambitious objectives for reducing energy consumption and GHG emissions in France. Moreover, the decreases that might occur mask significant social disparities across households. The joint implementation of multiple instruments leads to interactions that diminish overall policy outcomes. Overall, current public policies produce estimated free-riding rates of 75%. Energy efficiency measures are thus insufficient in themselves; the government should focus more on monetary poverty as a cause of low home improvement rates and consider subsidizing renovation costs as a potential solution.

Development of ICT for Leaching Monitoring in Taiwan Agricultural LTER Stations

In order to study the groundwater subsidy from different cropping systems, leaching monitoring in Taiwan started in 2008 and implemented agricultural long-term ecological research (LTER) stations. Initially, leaching data was received by lysimeters, and then collected manually by laborers in the field twice per month. The cost of data collection and transmission is high, real-time monitoring is not possible, and maintenance of instruments is inefficient. In this study, the goal is to develop a data transmission path. ICT (Information and Communication Technology) with different data transmission schemes was applied to improve the efficiency and immediacy of data transfer from the field to the databases in labs. Between 2010 and 2017, four versions of ICT have been developed and applied in LTER stations. WiFi, 2.5G (General Packet Radio Service, GPRS), 3G/4G network transmission, and Arduino cores are applied in different ICT versions. The first version of data transmission used data loggers, developed by the original factory, with a lower cost of renovation of instruments. However, complicated transmission paths, diverse instruments, poor weather resistance, and lack of wireless functionality are the limitations of the first version. Those limitations had been overcome by the second and third versions by using 2.5G (GPRS) and 3G/4G network transmission, respectively. Nevertheless, these versions are limited to the processes of data compression and encryption transmission which were developed by the system vendors. In addition, data can only be collected through the webpage provided by the vendors, instead of being received directly from the database using SQL (Structured Query Language). This is inappropriate for advanced data treatment, organization, and analysis. Finally, the fourth version of data transmission has been developed using Arduino. This system allows redesigning of the data loggers and transmission instrument with more feasibility and flexibility. Radio Frequency (Radio frequency, RF) has been imported into the transmission path to receive data from diverse instruments with fewer data loggers. In conclusion, ICT technological advancement with its advantages of reasonable cost and high flexibility and feasibility, Arduino and other open source operation systems can be used to develop the data loggers and related instruments to meet the needs of users. Therefore, ICT is the most appropriate strategy to develop the long-term monitoring system in the field and to apply to other environment monitoring systems.

Reliability assessment of a stand-alone wind-hydrogen energy conversion system based on thermal analysis

Due to the stochastic behavior of the wind speed, accessing the wind energy would be problematic in some critical moments. One feasible solution lies in the use of wind turbines to produce hydrogen through an electrolyzer and by using wind-hydrogen hybrid systems. However, many of the issues related to these systems should be investigated to make landmark decisions about their performance. For instance, there is a lack of study on the reliability assessment of the wind-hydrogen systems; for this purpose, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the reliability of a stand-alone wind-hydrogen energy conversion system unconnected to the grid. The proposed system consists of two major parts: the rectifier and the buck converter. The primary task of the rectifier is to rectify the wind turbine output voltage to a constant DC voltage. Additionally, the buck converter is responsible to reduce the voltage level to a 48 V voltage, which meets the voltage requirement of the 3.6 kW electrolyzer. The results of the performed simulations showed that the rectifier is under more thermal stresses than the buck converter. The predicted mean time to failure (MTTF) of the hybrid system is approximately 7.6 years, and this estimation can affect the maintenance and refurbishment costs.

A Preliminary Exploration of the Barriers of Sustainable Refurbishment for Commercial Building Projects in Malaysia

Malaysia is one of the developing countries that faced frequent and serious floods in recent years. Sustainable refurbishment seems to play an important role to fight against the climate change. Additionally, sustainable refurbishment approach is the greatest potential ways for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Existing commercial buildings in Malaysia have been found for one-third of the total electricity consumption. However, the amounts of sustainable refurbished buildings listed in the Green Building Index (GBI) certified are still considerably lower and not fully explored. That is, this research aims to identify the potential barriers that hinder commercial building owners to implement sustainable refurbishment and to determine the drivers that could improve sustainable refurbishment implementation in Malaysia. The qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interview with an experienced commercial building manager in Kuala Lumpur. The content analysis used in utilizing the entire dataset to identify underlying themes presented through the data. The result indicated that the key barriers of sustainable refurbishment are the higher cost of sustainable refurbishment than traditional methods and lacking of sustainable awareness among Malaysian. This preliminary research also found that the drivers that could improve sustainable refurbishment implementation are able to enhance their corporate image and to reduce the environmental impact. The findings of ongoing research can be beneficial for building owners to deliver their refurbishment projects with a green awareness and environmental considerations in the future.

Cycle-tourist network design

Abstract: Among the most effective actions to promote functional cycling, i.e., cycling as a mean of transport, infrastructure design and planning are major topics. Much less attention has been dedicated to the design and deployment of bikeways devoted to recreational cycling, despite the role of cycle routes in promoting cycle tourism, and the effectiveness of cycle tourism in fostering sustainable and environmentally friendly economic growth, in addition to encouraging healthy life styles. In this paper we contribute to fill this gap: we propose a quantitative based methodology for designing a cycle-tourist network infrastructure intended to provide local administrators with a quantitative based decision support tool to optimally exploit the scarce public funding devoted to the project deployment. We consider as a case study the data of the Trebon region, in South Bohemia. Given the local points of attractions and a set of potential links which can be turned into cycle pathways against a little investment in addition to a set of links already fit for cyclists, a network of cycle routes that interconnects a set of pre selected gates must be designed, so that the total link refurbishment cost is budget compliant and the attractiveness of cycle itineraries from gate to gate supported by the infrastructure is maximized. In previous studies we showed how to compute a resource-constrained optimal path from origin to destination, which maximizes a utility function related to the attractiveness of the arcs and nodes along the path. In a later work we generalized the problem to the case of multiple users with different utility functions that must share the same monetary budget. Building on these results, in this paper we propose a heuristic solution approach for the network design problem, where routes connecting several origin destination pairs have to be designed, yielding a connected infrastructure which allows for further itineraries. We exploit the ability of modern solvers to quickly find solutions to the single-pair single-user aforementioned case to generate a pool of promising paths from gate to gate, according to different preferences and constraints. In a second step, the network is built by solving a second combinatorial optimization problem which selects a path for each pair of gates from the pool, to yield a budget compliant connected infrastructure. Finally, a post optimization step deletes redundant links, if any. The solution approach is validated by an experimental campaign performed on realistic data for the Trebon zone, in Southern Bohemia.

Genetic Optimization for Economic Feasibility of Refurbishment in Buildings

This paper investigates the possibility to enhance the thermal characteristics of a building fabric taking into account the economic feasibility in order to avoid useless expensive interventions. The problem consists in realizing an internal insulation system for a single apartment located in Trieste.A genetic optimization has been implemented in order to search a large number of solutions with multiple objects and constraints. EnergyPlus has been used for dynamic building and plant simulation and modeFRONTIER for optimization loop setup. The objectives are the used heating energy consumption and the life cycle refurbishment cost, using a net present value approach. An additional objective has been added in order to guarantee the maximization of the interior useful floor area, which is directly influenced by the internal insulation thickness. Different approaches have been compared, considering actions dealing with opaque surfaces only or considering the replacement of existing windows. The paper demonstrates that an automatic optimization approach can help designers to identify the best suited intervention for building refurbishment.

Energy Efficient Refurbishment of Old Listed Dwellings: The Case of Victorian Housing Stock

Architects must contribute to climate change mitigation by designing structures in a way that respects natural, climatic, cultural, social and economic conditions of the local area. Such designs must take advantage of renewable energy resources, such as those derived from sun, wind, earth, and water, as well as locally produced materials. While making buildings more sustainable over time, we need to respect cultural heritage as expressed in the past, the present and the future. Architecture must also ensure thermal comfort and a healthy indoor environment throughout the year, while diminishing conventional fuels consumption on the basis of a bioclimatic, energy efficient approach. Buildings in use or in the course of erection account for over 50% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, upgrading old inefficient buildings to meet principles of bioclimatic design is an effective way to reduce energy use in industrialized countries. (Smith, 2005) However, refurbishment schemes should include both environmental design and conservation of architectural, historical and social values of old existing stock. This paper consists of two parts. First, there is a review of the objectives, targets and studies with regards to the old, existing UK housing stock. This section highlights the principles and advantages of bioclimatic design and energy efficient improvements to the fabric and services of listed buildings. The second part contains an evaluation of performance of the recently refurbished Victorian House at 17 St. Augustine‟s Road in London. Critical assessment of its current performance has been carried out according to winter and summer on-site measurements, simulations and calculations in TAS and SAP softwares. This study will focus more on winter performance and annual heating fuel demands. Occupant behaviour and its impact on the Low Energy Victorian House‟s (LEVH) performance has also been investigated through a questionnaire survey, while the cost of refurbishment is evaluated in terms of positive effectiveness to annual savings.

A composite dowel bridge in the Czech Republic

AbstractThe floods in the Czech Republic in the last few decades have resulted in a significant number of bridges having to be rebuilt. Unfortunately, the work meant long‐term traffic closures for railway bridges, coupled with significant costs for renovation and for providing alternative transport services. As a result, the minimum clear headroom above the design flood level required for new bridges and for reconstructing existing bridges has been increased. This initiated a search for new approaches to designing individual parts of bridge crossings, aiming to comply with the stricter conditions. The research aims to decrease costs in comparison with the costs of raising the finished grade level of the railway, especially at places where adjacent sections such as railway stations etc. are connected.

Optimal Decision Model for Sustainable Hospital Building Renovation-A Case Study of a Vacant School Building Converting into a Community Public Hospital.

Much attention has been paid to hospitals environments since modern pandemics have emerged. The building sector is considered to be the largest world energy consumer, so many global organizations are attempting to create a sustainable environment in building construction by reducing energy consumption. Therefore, maintaining high standards of hygiene while reducing energy consumption has become a major task for hospitals. This study develops a decision model based on genetic algorithms and A* graph search algorithms to evaluate existing hospital environmental conditions and to recommend an optimal scheme of sustainable renovation strategies, considering trade-offs among minimal renovation cost, maximum quality improvement, and low environmental impact. Reusing vacant buildings is a global and sustainable trend. In Taiwan, for example, more and more school space will be unoccupied due to a rapidly declining birth rate. Integrating medical care with local community elder-care efforts becomes important because of the aging population. This research introduces a model that converts a simulated vacant school building into a community public hospital renovation project in order to validate the solutions made by hospital managers and suggested by the system. The result reveals that the system performs well and its solutions are more successful than the actions undertaken by decision-makers. This system can improve traditional hospital building condition assessment while making it more effective and efficient.

BUILDING FACADE DOCUMENTATION USING LASER SCANNING AND PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND DATA IMPLEMENTATION INTO BIM

A project started last year called MORE-CONNECT, which focuses on the renovation of buildings (especially building facades) using prefabricated elements. The aim of this project is to create a competitive solution consisting of a technology and processes which enable fast, cost-effective renovation with minimal difficulties to inhabitants. Significant cost savings in renovation costs lies in the usage of prefabricated elements and the reduction of construction works on site. The precision of the prefabricated element depends on the precision of the construction, project and building documentation. This article offers an overview of the possible methods for building documentation and spatial data transfer into BIM (Building Information Modelling) software. The description of methods focuses on laser scanning and photogrammetry (including RPAS based), its advantages, disadvantages and limitations according to the documented building, level of renovation, situation on site etc. The next part involves spatial data transfer into BIM software. A proposed solution is tested in a case study.

BUILDING FACADE DOCUMENTATION USING LASER SCANNING AND PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND DATA IMPLEMENTATION INTO BIM

Abstract. A project started last year called MORE-CONNECT, which focuses on the renovation of buildings (especially building facades) using prefabricated elements. The aim of this project is to create a competitive solution consisting of a technology and processes which enable fast, cost-effective renovation with minimal difficulties to inhabitants. Significant cost savings in renovation costs lies in the usage of prefabricated elements and the reduction of construction works on site. The precision of the prefabricated element depends on the precision of the construction, project and building documentation. This article offers an overview of the possible methods for building documentation and spatial data transfer into BIM (Building Information Modelling) software. The description of methods focuses on laser scanning and photogrammetry (including RPAS based), its advantages, disadvantages and limitations according to the documented building, level of renovation, situation on site etc. The next part involves spatial data transfer into BIM software. A proposed solution is tested in a case study.

Energy consumption of non-retrofitted institutional building stock in Luxembourg and the potential for a cost-efficient retrofit

The public building stock of a country, consisting of schools, offices, accommodation facilities, single- and multi-family homes, accounts for a high consumption of electrical and heat energy. Therefore, this stock is often subject to actions with the goal of lowering this energy usage by increasing the efficiency of those buildings. This is usually done by applying measures to the building envelope like insulation and/or new windows and by using a more efficient HVAC technology. But often, in the initial state, the current energy consumption of such a stock is unknown or only known for single buildings. In this case, the calculation of energy and cost savings is either impossible or not exact. This paper shows a way to quantify and categorize the end-energy for heat use of the public building stock in Luxembourg, which consists of a gross area of 1.744million m2. This analysis was carried out in cooperation with the national administration of public buildings.A certain amount of sample buildings was analyzed and then separated into three groups of low, normal and high end-energy use. The boundaries of these groups were chosen according to literature values, derived from European retrofit projects, which also served as the source for possible renovation costs. This data was extrapolated to the whole stock. This information serves as a basis for future decisions concerning the retrofit of those buildings and makes a calculation of costs possible.As a result, the type of buildings with the highest potential for retrofit measures was identified. Schools, offices and accommodation facilities with a “high” consumption of more than 190kWh/(m2a) show the highest economic potential with retrofit costs of 0.04–0.08€/kWh if their energy consumption is lowered to values of around 90–100kWh. Other groups of buildings show higher costs of around 0.07–0.19€/kWh.

Costs Assessment for Building Renovation Cost-optimal Analysis

In the frame of the IEA-EBC project “Cost-Effective Energy and Carbon Emissions Optimization in Building Renovation”, the Politecnico di Milano research group elaborated the information required to perform the renovation measures cost-optimal analysis of two case study buildings, representative of the most common ones of the Italian residential stock. Renovation costs have been composed accurately and, additionally, an analysis of several references has been accomplished for collecting national energy consumptions and GHG emissions values, current and projected, and energy career indexes. Adopted approach can provide insights for analogous researches and outcomes can be considered for similar retrofit cases in Italy.

Detailed Case Studies - a Closer Look at Cost Effective Energy and Carbon Emission Optimization in Europe

Renovating the European building stock shows high potential for energy and greenhouse gas reductions. Thereby the optimum balance between energy conservation or efficiency measures and renewable energy generation on-site has to be found, regarding the primary energy and carbon emissions reductions as well as the renovation costs. The whole life cycle of the building has to be considered and therefore Life Cycle Cost (LCC) calculations and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) are of importance.This paper shows some results to these issues and was prepared within the frame of the IEA EBC Annex 56 research project [1].