2005 Housing Characteristics Tables  | Consumption & Expenditures Tables

Revised Housing Characteristics tables are now available reflecting updates in square footage calculations. Changes include 1) recalculation of Total Square Footage, 2) additions to Cooled Square Footage from homes with “window/wall” units only, and 3) revised counts of households within square footage ranges.

The Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) is a national area-probability sample survey that collects energy-related data for occupied primary housing units (first conducted in 1978, the 12th RECS was conducted in 2005). The 2005 survey collected data from 4,381 households in housing units statistically selected to represent the 111.1 million housing units in the United States. The Housing Characteristics tables (below) are the first data to be released from the 2005 RECS and provide information on the use of energy in residential housing units in the United States, including: the physical characteristics of the housing units; the appliances utilized including space heating and cooling equipment, demographic characteristics of the household, the types of fuels used, and other information that relates to energy use. Among topics covered in RECS 2005 are new questions about televisions and other media devices, personal computers and peripherals, Energy Star labeling, energy efficient lighting, window glazing and replacement and thermostat usage.

A table of Relative Standard Errors (RSEs) is included as a worksheet tab in each Excel table. (What is an RSE?)