Whole life appraisal of the repair and improvement work costs of Post Office buildings in Japan

A complete enumerative study was made of the repair and improvement work costs of the 1255 general sorting post offices throughout Japan in 2000. This paper analyses the 2000 expenditure figures from both the national enumerative survey and the survey of the five post offices being monitored for twenty years after their completion. The results show that the average annual repair work cost is 665 yen per square metre, and the average annual improvement work cost is 4231 yen per square metre, which total an average annual cost of 4896 yen per square metre. The repair and improvement work cost reaches an accumulated total of around 50 000 yen per square metre 20 years after a building has been completed, and an accumulated total of around 250 000 yen per square metre 50 years after completion. After analysing the relationship between the rebuilding cycle, and rebuilding, repair and improvement costs, by changing the present rebuilding at age 40 to building additions at age 40 and rebuilding at age 60, it became apparent that we could expect a significant reduction in facilities investment costs.