Life Cycle Cost Evaluation of Using Expanded Polystrene for Residential Buildings

As the world population continues to grow exponentially, disequilibrium has been created in the demand and supply of houses. Most developing nations of the earth today including Nigeria are exposed to the phenomenon of population growth and scarcity of houses. Therefore, there is need to explore alternative approaches to improve the availability of houses for low income citizens. One of the alternatives available is the adoption Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) for mass housing scheme. For that, this paper examines the cost effectiveness of Expanded Polystyrene as an alternative building material to the conventional Portland cement concrete and sandcrete blocks most used in Nigeria. Life Cycle Cost (LCC) model of cost comparison among project alternatives is adopted for the comparison of Expanded Polystyrene buildings with the Sandcrete blocks buildings. Net Present Value is adopted for the economic evaluation. The result of this research proves that the use of EPS for residential building construction is more economical in the long run and that much benefit will accrue to the stake holders in the built environment if LCC is applied in the early design stage to gauge and manage maintenance budgets and the overall life cycle costs of buildings