How representative is the BASE data to the U.S. building stock?

To better understand how representative the BASE buildings are to large office buildings and to all office buildings in the U.S., the BASE sample of 100 buildings was compared to data extracted from two significantly larger sample sets of buildings, the Energy Information Administration’s "1998 Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey" (CBECS) and the Building Owners and Managers Association’s (BOMA) 1998 report entitled "1998 BOMA Experience Exchange Report: Operating a cost effective office building, Your guide to income and expense data."

Comparisons with information extracted from these sources indicate BASE buildings most likely represent large office buildings with similar construction dates and hours of operation to the general population. The BASE buildings seem to be most representative of office buildings with 50 or more employees, which constitute about 11% of the U.S. office building stock (705,000 in 1998). However, the number of employees working within these buildings represents 73% of all U.S. office workers (26,563,566 in 1998). A detailed discussion of the representativeness of the BASE data to the U.S. building stock can be found in chapter 5 of the Summary and Analysis Report of the BASE Study Building Selection Process (PDF) - www.epa.gov/iaq/base/pdfs/2005bldgsel.pdf

Although the number of parameters available for comparison is limited, these comparisons provide an indication of the subset of office buildings that the BASE sample might represent. A more detailed comparison of other IAQ-related parameters (e.g., pollutant concentrations, ventilation measurements, maintenance) is desirable; however, it is believed that the BASE Study is the largest and most comprehensive IAQ study to date.

Read more about the BASE Study at www.epa.gov/iaq/base

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How representative is the BASE data to the U.S. building stock?

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