The 1999 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) was the seventh in the series begun in 1979. The 1999 CBECS estimated that 4.7 million commercial buildings (± 0.4 million buildings, at the 95% confidence level) were present in the United States in that year. Those buildings comprised a total of 67.3 (± 4.6) billion square feet of floorspace.

• Additional information on 1979 to 1999 trends

The CBECS is a national-level sample survey of commercial buildings with more than 1,000 square feet of floorspace that devote more than half of their floorspace to commercial activity. The 1999 CBECS was longitudinal with the 1995 survey (i.e., buildings in the 1995 sample were reinterviewed) and supplemented with a sample of buildings constructed after 1995. A total of 5,430 buildings were interviewed in 1999 (4,883 longitudinal and 547 new construction). The 1999 interviews were conducted by telephone unlike previous CBECS, whose data were collected with personal interviews.

Building characteristics data collected by the 1999 CBECS are summarized by major building categories and presented in 39 detailed data tables that can be downloaded in 3 file formats—Excel spreadsheet files, PDF files, and text files. Cells in the tables are either numbers of buildings or amount of floorspace (square footage) for a given category. Each detailed data table is accompanied by a table of relative standard errors (RSEs). The RSE is a measure of the accuracy of the sample data and can be used to calculate confidence ranges for the data.

• 1999 CBECS detailed tables

Principal Building Activities

The commercial buildings sector is diverse—it includes buildings as dissimilar as convenience stores, university laboratories, churches, and prisons (see “Description of CBECS Building Types”). Regardless of the variety of activities, floorspace in the sector was dominated by four activities—office, warehouse and storage, mercantile, and education (Figure 1). Those four accounted for 62 percent of commercial floorspace and half of the commercial buildings in the U.S. in 1999.

• Additional information on principal building activities
• Disaggregated principal building activities

Figure 1. Distribution of Floorspace by Principal Building Activity, 1999 Energy Information Administration, Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey

Size of Buildings

The average size for all commercial buildings in 1999 was 14,460 square feet. The distribution of commercial buildings by size was skewed, with many more small buildings than large ones (Figure 2). Half of all commercial buildings were in the smallest size category (1,001 to 5,000 square feet) with another 24 percent in the next larger category (5,001 to 10,000 square feet). The largest size category—buildings larger than 500,000 square feet—comprised only 7,000 commercial buildings.

• Additional information on size of buildings

Year Constructed

The median age for all commercial buildings in 1999 was 30.5 years—half were constructed before the midpoint of 1968 and half after. More than 36 percent of buildings were constructed prior to 1960 (versus 29 percent of floorspace) and 33 percent after 1979 (versus 37 percent of floorspace) (Figure 3).

• Additional information on year constructed

Census Region

The greatest number commercial buildings and the greatest amount of floorspace were found in the South Census region, the most populous region. The South's 23.5 billion square feet was 35 percent of total commercial floorspace (Figure 4).

• Additional information on Census region

Next section: Energy Sources and End Uses

Top

Specific questions may be directed to:

Alan Swenson
alan.swenson@eia.doe.gov

Release date: May 21, 2002

http://www.eia.gov/consumption/commercial/data/archive/cbecs/char99/intro.html