The Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) is a national statistical survey that collects information on residential energy use.

In the most recent survey, conducted in 2001, data were collected from 4,822 households statistically selected to represent the 107 million housing units in the United States. Data are available for the four Census regions, the nine Census divisions, and the four most populous States: California, Florida, New York, and Texas.

The survey includes information on the physical characteristics of housing units, demographic characteristics of households, heating and cooling equipment, fuels used, energy consumption and expenditures, and other data. It also includes information on a variety of interesting special topics.

Number of Hot Meals Cooked in the Home, 1993 and 2001

Source: Energy Information Administration.

Square Footage
The average total square footage of U.S. housing units, as measured in the 2001 RECS, was 2,066 square feet. This is a 10-percent increase above the average total of 1,875 square feet in 1993.

Cooking Trends from 1993 to 2001
Americans spent less time in the kitchen cooking in 2001 than they did in 1993. The percentage of households that reported cooking hot meals "two or more times a day" dropped from 36 percent in 1993 to 32 percent in the 2001 RECS. The percentage of households cooking "once a day" also declined, from 44 percent in 1993 to 41 percent in 2001.

Consequently, the percentage of households cooking "a few times a week" and "once a week or less" increased. The survey also found that the tendency to cook every day increased in proportion to the number of people in the household.

The Effect of Income on Appliances Owned
The effect of income on appliances in U.S. households examines the relationship between home appliance ownership and income, as well as geographic location, race, gender, and the number and relationships of the persons in a household.

The 2001 RECS found that three appliances were ubiquitous in U.S. homes regardless of income level: 99.9 percent of households had a refrigerator, 99.7 percent owned a cooking appliance, and 98.9 percent had a color television.

The presence of other appliances in the household, as well as their quality and features, vary significantly with income. Items in this category include cable and satellite television connections, video cassette recorders, stereo systems, cellular phones and answering machines, clothes washers and dryers, dishwashers, electric coffee makers, and microwave ovens.

Fax and Photocopier Machines
More than eight times as many households (24 million) had a fax machine in 2001 as in 1993. More than half of these fax machines machines were included as a feature of a PC printer.

There were also 20 million U.S. households with photocopier machines, thirteen times as many as in 1993. Nearly two-thirds of those photocopiers were a feature of a PC printer.

Ceiling Fans
Ceiling fans were used in 70 million U.S. households (65 percent) in 2001, a 14-percent increase over the number of households with ceiling fans in 1997. Homes built after 1980 to 2001 had more ceiling fans than homes built in earlier years. Homes with five or more rooms were also more likely to have ceiling fans, and the percentage of homes with ceiling fans increased as income increased.

Other special topics in the RECS include Residential Energy Consumption and Expenditures by Origin of Householder, Residential Energy Consumption and Expenditures per Household Member and per Building, Heating Oil Use in American Households, Natural Gas Use in American Households, Winter Energy Savings From Lower Thermostat Settings, Air-Conditioning Trends and Facts, and Lighting Type at Home and at Work.

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Questions about the report's content should be directed to:

Robert Latta, Office of Energy Markets and End Use

Robert.Latta@eia.doe.gov

Phone: (202) 586-1385

URL: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/plugs/plrecs01.html
File last modified: July 28, 2003