Life Cycle Costing (LCC) assesses all costs associated with a product, work, or service throughout its lifespan, and is a key indicator for sustainability in construction. The ForestValue2 project, WoodLCC, aims to enable accurate LCC calculations for wooden components and buildings, following standards EN 16627 (2015) and EN 15643-4 (2021).
WoodLCC: Advancing Timber Construction
WoodLCC considers a range of factors, including design, material properties, location, maintenance, and use intensity, to deliver holistic LCC estimates. By incorporating data on wood material costs, labor, installation, and degradation rates, the project seeks to optimize timber buildings’ lifecycle from design to end-of-life.
The project, running from April 2022 to April 2025, integrates LCC tools with Building Information Modelling (BIM), allowing the evaluation of wood performance over time. Three partners—Holzforschung Austria, Thünen Institute Hamburg, and Slovak University of Technology Bratislava—have been added to provide expertise in wood coatings, durability, and architectural design.
Milestones and Future Impact
WoodLCC has reached significant milestones, including simulations of rain, moisture, solar exposure, and aesthetic changes in wood. A prototype plug-in, compatible with industry-standard design software, is now available, enabling architects and engineers to simulate real-life conditions and optimize timber structures’ durability and cost-effectiveness.
The project’s outcomes offer a solid foundation for future research and advancements in sustainable timber construction.
Figure 1: Screenshot example of the WoodLCC plug-in tool compatible with industry-norm architectural design software. Service life and subsequent LCC calculations can be conducted on individual components of a building design. In this example, the building design is a BIM model of a simplified playground structure with demonstrative values used for the LCC calculations.
(1) WoodLCC project logo. (2) Outline of WP constituting project WoodLCC. (3) WoodLCC project partner consortium.