Abstract:
As the world's population continues to rise, there is a mismatch between supply and
demand for housing. Ethiopia, like the rest of the world's developing countries, is
presently challenged by the problems of population growth and housing scarcity. To
expand the number of affordable housing for low-income individuals, numerous
solutions must be investigated. One such approach is to use Expanded Polystyrene
(EPS) in a housing project. The study was conducted to investigate the stakeholder
perspectives on EPS technology; awareness, factors hindering EPS adoption, and
advantages. Finally, this article compared the life cycle cost of EPS to that of
conventional HCB construction. Utilizing an identical project design and the Life
Cycle Cost (LCC) technique, expanded polystyrene structures and HCB block
buildings were compared. Using closed questionnaires, the stakeholder perspective on
EPS implementation wasinvestigated. Only 29.54% of respondents did not know that
EPS is a construction material, according to the survey's findings, which indicate that
70.45% of them did. The most typical benefits of EPS, from the perspective of all
stakeholders, are low weight/easy transportation, material and labor savings,
simplicity of installation, and soundproofing. Similarly, Net Present Value was used
for the economic assessment. Buildings have a total life cycle cost, and EPS-based
construction would be 34.58% less expensive than traditional concrete-based
construction. The results of this study show that utilizing EPS for residential building
construction would be financially advantageous in the long run and that including
LCC in the design phase early on would be advantageous to all parties engaged in the
construction industry.
Keywords: Life cycle cost analysis, EPS, HCB, Net present value, Low cost