Build it cheap or build it well? Peter Kernan explains why Bovis Lend Lease chose value for money with no-polish vinyl floor covering at the Royal Worcester Hospital
As leader of a PFI consortium, Bovis Lend Lease didn't just build the Royal Worcester Hospital, which opened five months ago. The company financed the construction and now owns the hospital for the next 25 years.

Private finance initiative projects like this have turned construction on its head by insisting on best value for money. So instead of putting up the building in the time allowed and squeezing the capital cost of construction as hard as possible in order to make a profit, as in traditional design and build, Bovis Lend Lease had a strong financial incentive to balance capital costs against lifetime costs, and to use higher quality materials to drive down the cost of maintenance.

Builders who head up PFI consortiums have every reason to specify materials that offer the best lifetime value rather than the cheapest constructional cost. After all, the building will be theirs to run and maintain for 25 years, and they have to hand it over in a fit and usable condition to the client.

"It's a culture shock for the architects," says Barry Williams, PFI business development manager at Tarkett Sommer, which won the contract to supply flooring to the Royal Worcester. "They're not used to the construction side making the buying decisions on materials."

Slapped down and forgotten
Richard Dyson, associate director at facilities management consultancy ISG, stresses the importance of ensuring a building can be maintained easily and cheaply. "Up until three or four years ago, people never thought of the long-time implications of floor coverings – cleaning, maintenance, eventual replacement," he says. "Construction managers would find the cheapest floor covering they could, stick it down and go on to worry about something else. Their prime concern was to buy cheap."

Dyson has made a comparative study of floor coverings from a facilities management perspective to ascertain lifecycles, quality and costings. Now, his company insists on talking to the architect about facilities management at the brief stage, not when the building is all but complete and FM just has to manage with what they're presented with. "We work as a team with the construction people," he says, "so that everybody sings from the same hymn sheet, using materials with lower lifetime costs."

Martyn Woodhouse, project manager for the Royal Worcester Hospital, says the architects and the building team jointly made the decision on which floor coverings to choose, and that lifecycle costings were key in their discussions. "We based our decision on the long-term cost effects," he says.

Rigorous regime
Vinyl offered the hard-wearing, hygienic and easy-to-clean surface essential in a hospital. Health and cleanliness are vital in theatre areas and the floors are subject to rigorous cleaning.

"We went to see several suppliers," says Woodhouse. "Tarkett got the contract because it had a history in the hospital environment and offered a 25-year warranty for the whole package: the screed, the adhesive and the vinyl itself. For particularly high-wear areas, like the lift lobbies, the company agreed a replacement regime."

With most other vinyls guaranteed for only half that time, Tarkett's no-polish product was a big attraction on a PFI project.

it will save mega money in the long term - big, big money

Richard Dyson, consultant

"It does what they say it does," says Chris Brown, Royal Worcester site manager for Axiom, which laid the floor coverings at the hospital. "I've got no issues with wear. The 25-year guarantee takes care of everything. People are now sitting down and thinking of lifecycle. Low-maintenance adds value to the customer."

30% cheaper to maintain
Although no-polish vinyl costs around 5-6% more to buy and install, it is, according to Tarkett's calculations, up to 30% cheaper to maintain when the cost of labour, chemicals, detergents and fresh water (but not replacement) are compared over 25 years.

"The capital cost is fractionally more," agrees Dyson, who has 15 years' experience in hospital facilities management, "but it saves mega money over the long term - big, big money."

Maintenance is undoubtedly the biggest lifecycle cost for vinyl. Tarkett reckons that the initial outlay on buying and fitting vinyl represents only around 8% of total lifetime cost, with cleaning and maintenance accounting for the remaining 92%. Over the years, that's an awful lot of elbow grease, not to mention environmentally unfriendly alkali-based cleaning agents.

"Most vinyls contain large amounts of limestone and chalk filler, which is cheaper than PVC," explains Dyson. "But chalk doesn't retain a proper finish and looks grubby unless it's sealed."

The seal has to be regularly reapplied. When floors are polished, dust particles get polished in, which eventually makes the floor look grubby and grimy. Every three to six months, the vinyl has to be stripped, resealed and polished before the cleaners can go back to dry-buffing it every couple of days. And while that's happening, the area has to be shut down. In schools, for example, that might not be such a problem, as the resealing can be done in the holidays. But hospitals don't want to lose access to areas for days at a time.

Tarkett's no-polish vinyls incorporate a high proportion of PVC and only a small amount of filler, so they look smart without being sealed. Dry-buffing with a high-speed cleaner is enough to maintain them.

"It's the recipe really," says Williams. "All vinyls need a filler, but we use a small amount with a fine rather than a coarse consistency. We also press it to make it denser and more durable. Regularly burnishing the vinyl with a high-speed cleaner makes the surface tighter and harder because it liquefies the polyurethane layer and mixes it up with the PVC."

Millions of metres
Williams adds: "We've made around 200 million square metres of no-polish vinyl and now other manufacturers are also claiming to offer it, but in each case something has to be regularly applied to the floor to maintain it, even if that's a wax rather than an alkali cleaner."

a ‘CONTRACTOR clean’ can be dispensed with

Chris Brown, site manager

No-polish vinyl also has an extra benefit in geriatric and orthopedic hospital wards.

"Older patients and those with broken limbs are often nervous about walking on shiny, high-gloss floors," explains Dyson. "But low-maintenance, no-polish vinyl has a sheen rather than a gloss, so patients are more comfortable about walking on it and the hospital gets more use out of it."

And because no-polish vinyl contains a high proportion of PVC, it's more flexible, which makes it easier to lay than stiffer, filler-heavy products. It can even be self-coved up a wall.

"There's a lot of PVC in it, so it's slightly more malleable than most and we coved it up the wall in a few areas, like the children's ward," says Brown. He adds that a key benefit of using the no-polish product is that the initial 'contractor clean' can be dispensed with, saving time and expense.

Over 33,000m2 of the 38,000m2 of flooring at the Royal Worcester were covered with vinyl from Tarkett. "It was a big project, so they gave us a reasonable price on a special, intricate design for the children's ward that was laser-cut at the factory," says Woodhouse.

It took a year to lay the floor coverings, with work stopping and starting in line with the programme. Practical completion came at the end of last year.

Too hot to handle
Of the floor coverings that Tarkett didn't supply, vinyl from Altro was laid in the kitchen areas, where heat-resistance was vital. And other manufacturers supplied the stonework for the entrance lobby and the carpet for the waiting rooms.

Like some other flooring manufacturers such as Nairn and Freudenberg, Tarkett has set up a separate sales department for PFI clients to estimate the effect of different flooring on project costs.

Because Tarkett makes a complete range of flooring products, it believes it is well positioned to provide objective advice. And by recommending the best substrate for the product, it may even be able to reduce construction costs.