Oxford Method Research Programme

Maintenance

 

It had been intended that this report would also consider the day to day maintenance, running costs and energy consumption costs of Oxford Method buildings.

Unfortunately, none of the hospitals were able to identify separately the costs attributable specifically to Oxford Method buildings from the whole - site data.

Given the poor thermal qualifies of the Oxford Method external envelope, it is to be expected that significant energy savings would accrue from re-cladding, re-roofing and fitting new double-glazed windows. However, even where such works have been undertaken, it has not been possible to extract the data to quantify the financial benefits.

It is recommended that where business cases are being prepared, careful consideration is given to whole-life costs, particularly energy consumption benefits which are likely to show relatively short payback periods for improvements to the external envelope.