Study of Cost and Construction Speed of Cladding Wall for Lightweight Steel Frame (LSF)

The strategic issue faced by the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, Republic of Indonesia (PUPR) is the large housing backlog, especially in the urban areas. Low-income communities earning less than 2 USD/day are found as the most vulnerable to lack of access to affordable housing. This experiment aims to find an alternative solution on building construction material in accordance with the Ministry of Public Housing regulation No. 11 of 2011 about affordable housing guidelines. The experiment was carried out on an LSF to compare four different wall cladding materials. The building area was 36 m² and the total wall cladding area was 95 m². The wall cladding materials used were metal sheet, lightweight concrete brick, gypsum reinforced cement (GRC) board, and unplasticized polyvinyl chloride (uPVC) fiber. The experiment collected data on purchases of materials to develop the S-curve and measure construction progress. Then, the work unit price analysis (WUPA) approach was carried out to simulate the labor coefficient of construction speed and its comparison to the material costs of the four wall cladding materials. The experiment on this 36 m² house found that metal sheet is the most efficient material, which took 22.7 h to cover a 95 m² wall. Later, it was followed by uPVC fiber with 46.6 h, GRC board with 59.7 h, and finally lightweight con-bricks with 85.7 h. Apparently, the metal sheet not only presented the most efficient construction time, but also provided the lowest construction cost with 115.960 IDR/m² (8.24 USD/m²). It was followed by uPVC fiber at 133.37 IDR/m² (9.48 USD/m²); GRC board at 146.91 IDR/m² (10.44 USD/m²) and finally lightweight con-bricks at 156.88 IDR/m² (11.15 USD/m²). Through WUPA, this study also found that efficient workmanship (construction speed) of the labor greatly affects construction costs.

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