A Heating and Cooling Load Model for Single-Family Detached Dwellings in Energy Survey Data

The National Interim Energy Consumption Survey (NIECS) and the Pacific Northwest Residential Energy Survey (PNW) are clustered random samples of households interviewed between 1978 and 1980. These surveys report household equipment holdings and energy consumption levels by fuel, as well as selected household and dwelling characteristics. To study the economic determinants of equipment and usage behavior, it is necessary to first describe the economic environment in which behavior is determined. This technical report carries out the construction of heating-ventilating-air conditioning (BVAC) physical characteristics and costs for the alternative systems available to single-family owner-occupied households. The approach of this report is to construct a very simple thermal model of representative dwellings with characteristics corresponding to those available in typical energy survey data. This model is used to estimate heating and cooling capacity requirements, energy usage, and physical characteristics, for households in the (NIECS) and (PNW) surveys. Cost data from Means (1981) are then used to estimate the capital and operating costs of 19 alternative BVAC configurations for the actual thermal integrity of the building shell and for two alternative thermal standards.