Describe the homes, tenants, or facilities you need to understand. Makeform creates an electricity usage survey covering household context, appliances, time-of-use habits, bills, and conservation.
Send responses to Google Sheets, Slack, and Zapier.
Sample prompts for the survey builder
Choose a prompt, adapt it to your study, or send it into the Makeform builder. The structure is an example, not a live AI result.
Audience
Households in a utility service area
Format
Anonymous survey with time-of-use matrix
Prompt size
364 chars
Example survey structure
Anonymous survey with time-of-use matrix
Home and household profile
Which major electric appliances do you use?
When is electricity use highest?
Which conservation actions have you tried?
Interest in shifting peak-time use
Suggested routing tags
High evening use
Efficiency interest
Follow-up requested
Ask when an appliance is used as well as whether it is owned. Timing reveals morning, evening, and overnight demand.
Step 1
Profile
home, occupants, schedule, and equipment
Step 2
Observe
daily habits by appliance and time period
Step 3
Understand
bill experience, barriers, and comfort needs
Step 4
Act
segment responses and plan follow-up
Better usage evidence
Most respondents cannot estimate kilowatt-hours. Ask about equipment, schedules, and repeatable behaviors they can recall.
Show heat-pump questions to heat-pump users, EV questions to drivers, and follow-up only when a concern is reported.
Use consistent scales and time bands so responses group without interpreting free text.
Omit account numbers, exact addresses, and contact details when anonymous group patterns are enough.
Four survey programs
Choose the audience, decision, time periods, equipment, and identification.
Map appliances, peak-time behavior, outages, and interest in shifting demand.
Compare buildings, billing responsibility, and reported equipment concerns.
Ask about lighting, plug loads, schedules, and shutdown barriers.
Use stable questions and anonymous codes for before-and-after comparisons.
Survey workflow
Move from a research decision to routed questions, a pilot, and grouped responses.
Decide whether responses guide a program, outreach, facility changes, or a baseline. Remove unrelated questions.
Describe the audience, appliances, time bands, and identifiers. Makeform creates the survey.
Check whether a small group recognizes equipment names, interprets scales consistently, and can finish without a bill.
Export consistent fields and compare by dwelling, schedule, appliance, or interest.
Question design
Match formats to what occupants know.
Field guide
Connect household context with electricity habits.
Household context
Dwelling and occupancy shape demand. Use broad categories that support comparison without unnecessary identification.
Equipment profile
Name equipment plainly and allow not sure. Separate heating, cooling, hot water, cooking, laundry, pools, and charging.
Timing & frequency
Frequency scales and fixed time bands compare better than open estimates. Split weekdays and weekends only when useful.
Bills & service
Ask whether bills changed and how outages affect needs. Request exact amounts only when necessary and name the period.
Actions & barriers
Record actions, willingness to shift flexible loads, and barriers such as comfort, schedule, responsibility, cost, or unclear instructions.
Follow-up & privacy
Explain how answers will be used. Keep follow-up optional and use anonymous codes to link repeated surveys.
Related tools
Pair usage questions with research, inspections, and feedback.
Study household choices and routines beyond electricity use.
Open toolCollect community views about energy, resources, and environmental priorities.
Open toolStructure a team's separate electrical inspection workflow.
Open toolBuild a general questionnaire when identity is unnecessary.
Open toolFAQ
Practical answers for utilities, researchers, landlords, and facilities teams designing a useful questionnaire.
It is a questionnaire about the setting, equipment, schedules, and behaviors shaping electricity consumption. Utilities, researchers, and facilities teams can use it to understand patterns and barriers that meter totals do not explain.
Ask dwelling type, occupancy, heating and cooling source, appliances, time-of-day use, seasonal differences, bills, outages, conservation, and willingness to shift flexible use. Add only identifiers needed for the project.
Only when respondents can consult a bill, meter, or portal. Many cannot recall kilowatt-hours. Appliance, frequency, and time-of-day questions are easier to answer. Label the period if requesting an amount or reading.
Yes. Omit names, account numbers, and exact addresses when group patterns are sufficient. An anonymous code can connect repeated surveys. Put optional contact fields last so respondents can skip them.
Ask tenure early, then branch. Ask tenants about bill responsibility, included utilities, controlled equipment, and concerns. Ask homeowners about upgrades, rates, solar, batteries, or EV charging. Keep shared scales identical.
Keep every question tied to a decision. Conditional logic can hide irrelevant sections. Pilot with intended respondents and revise unclear equipment terms or scales before wider distribution.
Yes. Makeform is unlimited free for generating, editing, publishing, and collecting responses. The paid tier removes the Makeform badge. Edit the generated fields and share the survey with households, tenants, or occupants.
Use choices, checkboxes, fixed time bands, and consistent scales for grouping. Send submissions to Google Sheets and compare by dwelling, property, schedule, equipment, or interest. Review comments for issues fixed choices missed.
Ask about habits people can actually recall.
