The average age of a single family home in the US is 34 years old, meaning that much of the existing housing stock was constructed in an era that offered both relatively inexpensive energy and did not consider carbon dioxide as a form of pollution that contributes to global warming.  Consequently, simple energy efficiency measures are sorely lacking in these homes—a problem with far reaching consequences, but also an opportunity for substantial energy savings. The students will focus on comparing expected energy usage of certain products based on prior energy modeling of a retrofitted sustainable residential home (ReNEWW), as well as energy testing done by the manufacturer of the given product versus the actual energy that was used in the home by these products pre and post retrofit. 

UPDATE
The goal of this project is to analyze energy usage of the retrofitted sustainable residential home (ReNEWW) in partnership with Whirlpool. The ReNEWW home is located in West Lafayette, IN, just blocks from Purdue University. Part of the analysis is to compare the expected energy usage of a specific set of products in the home with the actual historical usage data of these products. The team will also be comparing the efficiency of the products before and after the retrofit of the home. Currently, the team has been given access to years of historical data, both pre and post retrofit, in which Tableau is being used to read and organize the data. Thus far the team is currently analyzing the washing machine with future intentions to analyze other components. The end goal of the project is to determine how close they are to net zero and how to guide their improvements for maximum effect.