Boston College Environmental Studies Program
Water Cooler Energy Audit
Kate Brennan and Alex Nicoll reporting for Environmental Seminar
Introduction:
Office conversations often center around a traditional water
cooler, but that same cooler is almost never its topic. After
meeting with John MacDonald, BC’s Energy Manager, we
realized the serious lack of data on the inventory of water
coolers on campus. Since water is so essential to any
worker’s day, it is essential that BC offers its faculty the best
quality water while also minimizing its energy consumption.
We set out to collect data on the different models of water
coolers, the availability and usage on campus, and calculate
the amount of energy used by these essential yet often
overlooked appliances.
How much energy does Boston
College use on faculty water coolers?
Results:
Key
Jug Water Cooler 
Main Campus
Both Styles 
Filtered Tap Water 
Number of Coolers
234567
90 % of survey
Conclusions:
respondents either preferred
filtered tap water or were
indifferent of where their water
came from
Methods:
1) Gather an inventory of Boston College Main Campus water
coolers.
2) Create a survey for Boston College faculty and staff on water
cooler usage.
3) Use Kill-A-Watt meter to measure the amount of energy used
by a hot versus cold cup of water.
Survey Questions Included…
• How often per week do you use the water cooler for cold water?
• How often per week do you use the water cooler for hot water?
• Which source of water do you prefer?
• Bottled Water, Filtered Tap Water, Indifferent
Calculations:
Hot Water
Cold
Water
BC should attempt to centralize its
information on water coolers by giving
control of water coolers to Boston
College Facilities Services rather than it
being under department control.
Since there was hardly any difference in energy
consumption between filtered tap water coolers and
bottled water coolers, BC should think long term and
factor in the environmental externalities including the
cost of transporting jugs and disposing of them. Since
faculty and staff do not prefer bottled water, we
recommend transitioning to filtered water coolers.
BC should continue to work with the construction
company that completed Stokes, RDK Engineers, and
thus will save money.
Acknowledgments:
Hot Water
Filtered: (3.69*480*758)/ 1000 = 1342.57 Kw
Jug Water Cooler: (3.69*480*758)/ 1000 = 1342.57 Kw
Kw = Energy expended per week
C = Mean number of cups
W = Energy expenditure per cup
N = Number of BC Faculty
The map to the left reflects the number of water coolers
per building surveyed as well as whether or not the
building had all traditional water coolers, all filtered
water coolers, or a combination of both. The survey
results show us the number of faculty members that use
a certain number of hot or cold cups of water. We also
recorded the water preferences from faculty members
to see if the campus had a preference for one source of
water over another. When we used to Kill-A-Watt meter
to record the energy consumption of the jug water
cooler, we found it to consume 480 W for a hot cup of
water and 114 W for a cold cup of water. For the filtered
water cooler, we found it to consumer 480 W for a hot
cup of water and 120 W for a cold cup of water.
Cold Water
Filtered: (3.79*120*758)/1000 = 344.73 Kw
Jug Water Cooler: (3.79*114*758)/1000 = 327.5 Kw
We would like to thank John MacDonald for his help with
this project as well as our Professor Gabrielle David. Also
we thank our friends at the IRB office for their help on this
project.