Abstract:
Usually, the costs incurred during the operational phase of a building are much greater than the initial
construction cost. Amongst, the running cost of a typical commercial building varies between 70-80% of its
total LCC depending on its determinants. However, the significance of those determinants could vary with
building function, characteristics of location and economy where it is based. This paper, therefore,
investigates the significance of factors influencing the running cost of commercial buildings in Sri Lanka.
A questionnaire survey administered to a sample of 125 industry professionals who have more than 10 years
of experience in building O&M indicates that O&M costs of a commercial building are influenced by 08
major determinants including building characteristics (BC), maintenance factors (MTF), managerial
factors (MNF), environmental factors (EF), political factors (PF), tenant factors (TF), design and &
construction defects (DCD), and social factors (SF). The relative significance index (RSI) analysis
performed ranked EF as the top determinant influencing both operations and maintenance costs of
commercial buildings with an RSI of 0.963 and 0.996 respectively. Further, all the respondents are of the
view that building function, occupancy, and building services have a highly significant influence on
operations costs whereas natural deterioration, failure to identify the true cause of defect, lack of preventive
maintenance, and budget constraints are foremost factors influencing the maintenance costs. The impact of
most of the sub-factors except very few namely, building function, age, and location on O&M costs can be
controlled up to a greater extent. Thus, early consideration of these factors during the building design and
construction will result in reduction of unnecessary costs to be incurred during the operational phase of a
building.
