June 1993 Issue #2

Progress in Residential Retrofit

Many utilities survey their customers to learn more about the characteristics of the buildings and the occupants. These surveys--usually called "residential appliance saturation surveys" or RASSes--ask about the number and types of appliances present, number of people living in the home, and even their attitudes. The RASSes also frequently collect information about the presence of conservation measures such as wall insulation, ceiling insulation, weatherstripping, multipane windows, and water flow restrictors. Building Energy Measurement and Performance Analysis researchers Alan Meier and Brian Pon gathered RASSes from over 100 utilities for recent research on the nation's progress in residential retrofit. This compilation represents nearly 80 million residential customers or approximately 80% of the nation's households. Average saturations levels of conservation measures were calculated from these RASSes.

The principle advantage of using RASSes is that each RASS surveys a large number of consumers. When data from the RASSes are aggregated nationally or regionally, their sample size is far greater than that of analogous nation-wide surveys which typically survey only a few thousand customers. Another advantage to using RASSes is the low cost to get them, usually only requiring a letter and a phone call to collect the survey. Unfortunately, the inconsistent questions and wording throughout the RASSes we collected from the various utilities make it difficult to aggregate the data.

The map shows the saturation of water heater blankets across the country. Although most utilities did not ask their customers if they had water heater blankets, enough utilities asked so that the variation among utility service areas is detectable. The saturation levels in various regions appear to have little correlation to climate. They range from a low of 8% in central Texas to a high of 56% in an area in the Pacific Northwest. This utility conducted a free water heater wrap program four years ago. Evidently, this program was highly successful and shows the impact of a well-managed conservation program.

A geographic representation of water heater blanket saturation based on data from RASSes. White areas indicate that we have no data for that region.

-Brian Pon & Alan Meier

For more information, please contact Alan Meier.

More about progress in residential retrofit from the Center for Building Science News.

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