Probabilistic and Fuzzy Approaches for Estimating the Life Cycle Costs of Buildings under Conditions of Exposure to Risk

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper "Probabilistic and Fuzzy Approaches for Estimating the Life Cycle Costs of Buildings under Conditions of Exposure to Risk" describes different aproaches to LCC of Buildings.

The authors could further explain the links between their paper and sustainability topics.

Several comments:

No need to include the full ISO 15686-5 title in the abstract Line 30: Specially for Polish? Define BIM Define LCNPV Line 108: Which environmental aspects? Line 22: values are. Check English Define Cg, Cl, FG, FK, FP? Describe a,b,c and d also for Figures 2,3 and 4 Figure 1-4 a, is the same for all figures. Maybe there is no need to repeat it DIscount rate between 6-10%. Why? Cost could be provided in $ or €, and would be easier to analyze for non-polish readers Figure 5: Dots should be used for the decimal points in Y axis Figure 7 to 10: Dots should be used for the decimal points in Y axis and data Figures 7 to 10: All the data in the right section of the figure is repeated. maybe only show it in figure 7, and figure 8 to 10 only with the probability distribution graph Link the conclusions with sustainabilty related topics An abbreviation list would be useful

Author Response

The author wish to thank the Reviewer for the positive feedback and for all comments that helped to enrich and improve the paper. The reviewer’s remarks and requests have been considered carefully by the author. All the requested revisions have been addressed. All the improvements and changes in the manuscript are marked with red colour. The author’ answers are presented in the questions that follow.

The paper "Probabilistic and Fuzzy Approaches for Estimating the Life Cycle Costs of Buildings under Conditions of Exposure to Risk" describes different aproaches to LCC of Buildings. The authors could further explain the links between their paper and sustainability topics.

Several comments:

No need to include the full ISO 15686-5 title in the abstract

We have removed full title.

Line 30: Specially for Polish? Define BIM Define LCNPV

We have removed some part of sentence included “Polish” researchers. Abbreviations have been defined.

Line 108: Which environmental aspects?

We have removed this.

Line 22: values are.

This has been corrected but in part 5 of the paper (in Conclusions).

Check English Define Cg, Cl, FG, FK, FP?

The abbreviations have been checked and right corrected.

Describe a,b,c and d also

They have been described.

for Figures 2,3 and 4 Figure 1-4 a, is the same for all figures. Maybe there is no need to repeat it

The numbering of the Figures listed in succession has been corrected throughout.

Discount rate between 6-10%. Why?

Discount rates in this range are the most commonly used in practice.

Cost could be provided in $ or €, and would be easier to analyze for non-polish readers

The monetary unit has been changed to EUR (€) throughout.

Figure 5: Dots should be used for the decimal points in Y axis Figure 7 to 10: Dots should be used for the decimal points in Y axis

Oracle Crystall Ball software has no option to choose the separation method for decimal points in Y axis. Commas are the default option. Due to all Figures were prepared as the screenshots, the authors are unable to take this suggestion into account.

and data Figures 7 to 10: All the data in the right section of the figure is repeated. maybe only show it in figure 7, and figure 8 to 10 only with the probability distribution graph

The Figures have been corrected in accordance with the reviewer's comment.

Link the conclusions with sustainabilty related topics

We added in conclusion some part related to the sustainability.

An abbreviation list would be useful 

Lists of abbreviations are used rather in monographs. According to the instructions available to the authors on the journal's website “abbreviations should be defined in parentheses the first time they appear in the abstract, main text, and in figure or table captions and used consistently thereafter”.

Reviewer 2 Report

Some suggestions for the author:

Row 54: You say that the impact of risks has not been studied. There are a lot of papers related to this issue: Tipili&Ilyasu (2014), Laryea&Hughes (2006), and others.

Rows 185, 198: the authors refer to some of their articles that studied the theme. Which is their contribution in this paper? 

Row 216: the formula should have another element: the cost of energy during the life cycle.

In my opinion, the accent of the paper should be on the risks that may occur during the life cycle. Which are they? Is the analyse developed from cradle to gate, or from cradle to grave?

The conclusions are very brief. Can you explain more? Is this assessment important? For which stakeholders? Have the risks the same weight in your research?

I cannot understand the practical use of the results from the paper. Please develop this section.

Author Response

The authors wish to thank the Reviewer for the positive feedback and for all comments that helped to enrich and improve the paper. The reviewer’s remarks and requests have been considered carefully by the authors. All the requested revisions have been addressed. All the improvements and changes in the manuscript are marked with red colour. The authors’ answers are presented in the questions that follow.

Some suggestions for the author:

Row 54: You say that the impact of risks has not been studied. There are a lot of papers related to this issue: Tipili&Ilyasu (2014), Laryea&Hughes (2006), and others.

We didn’t say that the impact of risks has not been never studied by the researchers. We know that scientists have repeatedly studied the issue of the impact of risk on various aspects. What is important in this article is what the ISO standard draws attention in section 8. The ISO standard notes that “although there exist models that take into account the impact of identified risk factors on the size of the building life cycle costs but none of them defines or expresses the impact of risk in the form of a separately quantified cost addition for the risk”.

Rows 185, 198: the authors refer to some of their articles that studied the theme. Which is their contribution in this paper? 

The authors refer in the text to their own papers which are a series of publications related to the topic of their research. This paper presents the next step in their research on the issue and was not part of the articles published so far. This article is a development of previous research.

Row 216: the formula should have another element: the cost of energy during the life cycle.

Annuity factor (AF) is an indicator based on the discount rate and can be used to calculate the annual equivalent of the life cycle cost of a building. It does not contain information about costs, but it can be used to calculate all types of operating and withdrawal costs including energy costs.

In my opinion, the accent of the paper should be on the risks that may occur during the life cycle. Which are they? Is the analyse developed from cradle to gate, or from cradle to grave?

The methodology presented in the article concerns the method of calculating the impact of risk on the life cycle costs of buildings. Of course, the authors began work on the model by identifying and assessing risk factors in the life cycle of buildings for both end-of-life types (from cradle to grave and from cradle to gate). This scope is presented in their articles: Plebankiewicz & Wieczorek (2016) and Wieczorek, Plebankiewicz & Zima (2019). The authors believe that adding a table with identified and assessed risks can disrupt the layout of this article, especially since (as already mentioned above) this paper presents the continuation (development) of previous research.

The conclusions are very brief. Can you explain more? Is this assessment important? For which stakeholders? Have the risks the same weight in your research?

The conclusion has been expanded.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have properly replied to most of my comments.

However, for Figure 5: Dots should be used for the decimal points in Y axis and Figure 7 to 10: Dots should be used for the decimal points in Y axis.

If you have all the figures as screenshots, you can use software like Photoshop, or even Microsoft Paint to modify the figures and show dots instead of decimal points