Cost information     

The construction of buildings with the BSCP System reduces costs.

BSCP carries out, along with its Industrialization Project, a thorough construction cost study, considering the special circumstances of each building works.

Document nº 1 of the Industrialization Project adapts the Architectural project to the BSCP System. This document not only includes a definition of how the building must be constructed, but also a cost study of the "Grey Work".

We define "Grey Work" as the one designed specifically for the BSCP System and which, together with what we call the white work, completes the whole building work process. To this effect the white work is defined as the work which includes land movement, foundations, drainage, facade and roof reinforcement for thermal insulation and the final finishes i.e. painting, fabrics, papers, flooring, plating and tiling and the execution of the electrics and plumbing installations and the woodwork.

To give an idea, we can say that, on average, the "Grey Work" of a 4.300m2 building is made up of the following materials:

• 3.600 m2 of electro welded wire mesh of 150 x 150 x 6
• 7.150 m2 of electro welded wire mesh of 150 x 150 x 8
• 7.050 m2 of electro welded wire mesh of 150 x 150 x10
• 1.650 m2 of electro welded wire mesh of 150 x 150 x16
• 180 m3 of concrete with a 250 kg/cm2 characteristic resistance
• 4.050.000 kg to be transported
• 1.000 hours of manufacturing crane
• 800 hours of assembling crane
• 13.000 hours of manufacturing labour
• 4.000 hours of assembly labour
• A consignment of several things which includes the unshuttering, the joint filling mortar/concrete, the thermal insulation and the necessary steel rods which need to be placed into the panels in order to lift them up and join them together
• The necessary moulds to execute the work

For your information we can also state that:

• On average, a 4.300 m2 building is usually made up of 1.500 panels and the total surface of all the panels adds up to around 9.500 m2.
• It is not necessary to use a specialised labour force, because before the beginning of the works BSCP provides precise instructions included in the "Industrialization Project" for the Site manager and for the people in charge of executing the building work.
• On average, one journeyman and one labourer can make 2-3 panels per day and 5 journeymen and 5 labourers are needed in order to make 12 panels per day.
• On average, with a telescopic crane, 15 panels a day can be assembled; and that a welder, an official bricklayer, and 2 labourers are necessary to assemble, cement, weld and finish off daily this amount of panels.

Taking all this into consideration and by applying the unitary average prices of the area where the building is to be constructed, one can get an accurate idea of the average Grey Work costs of a promotion.

The pieces' manufacturing in a warehouse is similar to the one on the site. It is advisable to manufacture the pieces in a warehouse whenever:

• Various small works are being carried out.
• There isn't enough space to manufacture the panels on the site.
• It rains regularly at the location where the project is being executed.

The manufacturing of the pieces in a warehouse is less expensive due to the higher efficiency of the labour because of the better working conditions. However, the total cost of the "Grey Work" is slightly higher due to the transportation cost of the pieces from the warehouse to the work site.

It is very important, to achieve the costs indicated in the budgets of the three abovementioned promotions, that:

• The pieces' manufacturing, transport and assembly orders indicated in the industrialization project are followed carefully.
• A journeyman who has never worked with the "BSCP System" takes between 10 and 15 days to reach the indicated productivity.

The costs saving achieved with the BSCP construction system, compared with the construction costs using traditional methods is backed up by the two following documents:

• "The study carried out by the Generalitat of Catalonia in Spain" , for the execution of a 30 units-social housing building, in which they conclude that using the BSCP System means a cost saving of 8,52 %.
• "The official report following a visit to a block of 23 social housing units for young people", in which is accredited that a cost saving of 30% was achieved by using the BSCP System. Moreover this building has been chosen by the "Ministerio de Fomento" to represent Spain in Tokyo at the International Conference on Sustainable Architecture in 2005.
  

The costs saving depend on the type of building. Therefore a very simple building produces smaller costs savings (8,52% in the building studied by the Generalitat of Catalonia of Spain), whilst complex buildings' projects produce much greater costs savings (as much as 30% in the case of the project in Mataró according to the Council of Mataró in the province of Barcelona, Spain).