Accredited official statistics

English Housing Survey 2023 to 2024: climate resilient homes – fact sheet

Published 17 July 2025

Applies to England

The English Housing Survey (EHS) is a national survey of people’s housing circumstances and the condition and energy efficiency of housing in England. This publication sets out key information about whether homes in England are resilient to the effects of climate change and extreme weather and the potential impact of this on households.

The UK is legally required to adapt to climate change. The National Adaptation Programme sets out plans to increase resilience within the built environment and mitigate the impact of climate change on public health, particularly concerning exposure to excess heat and more frequent severe weather events (Climate Change Act 2008, Climate change adaptation and resilience in the UK and The Third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) and the Fourth Strategy for Climate Adaptation Reporting).

Climate adaption relates to actions that protect us against the impacts of climate change. This includes reacting to the changes we have seen already, as well as preparing for what will happen in the future. Housing will be on the front line of adaptation challenges.

The first section of this publication examines the profile of dwelling age by dwelling characteristics. The second section explores dwelling age in relation to self-reported overheating and the ability of households to keep warm during winter by household characteristics. The third section looks at self-reported moisture damage to homes following a storm event, by household characteristics such as income and household composition, and the prevalence of working from home, by tenure and average energy costs. The fourth and final section looks at homeowners who had energy efficiency improvement works to their homes recommended by the energy performance certificate and the reasons why they carried out these works, or indeed the reasons not to have implemented any of the recommended measures.

1. Dwelling age by dwelling characteristics

The following analysis looks at the characteristics of the current dwelling stock as they relate to climate resilience, broken down by dwelling age. The data are split into three age categories to allow for comparison: pre-1945, 1945 to 2012, and post 2012.

Pre-1945: Older dwellings built prior to 1945 used traditional building techniques such as brick, blockwork or stone. Walls would most likely have been solid, with cavity walls gradually becoming dominant in the inter-war period.

1945 to 2012: At the end of the Second World War in England, temporary accommodation was built to combat the housing shortage and the Housing Act increased the amount of social housing built. What was known as ‘non-traditional building techniques’ were more commonly used. For more information on this see BRE’s report on The Housing Stock of the UK.

Post 2012: Building Regulations were amended to include a new requirement for new dwellings to achieve better fabric energy efficiency in addition to carbon emission targets.

England has some of the oldest housing stock in Europe and, as such, will experience some of the biggest challenges to adapt to climate change.

Dwelling built pre-1945

In 2023, there were around 8.9 million dwellings in England constructed prior to 1945. Of these, one quarter were private rented (25%), 68% were owner occupied and 7% were social rented, Annex Table 1.

Dwellings built pre-1945 were most commonly mid terrace (30%) or semi-detached (27%). Additionally, they were more likely to be built in urban areas (90%).

Almost two thirds (64%) of dwellings constructed pre-1945 had solid walls that were uninsulated. Just 5% of dwellings with solid walls had insulation, 17% had cavity wall insulation and another 14% had cavity walls without insulation. Insulation is important in reducing heat loss in winter and heat gain in summer, and with so many older dwellings without insulation, it makes them less resilient to extreme heat or cold, Annex Table 2.

As would be expected, older dwellings were less energy efficient than newer dwellings. More than half of dwellings (55%) built pre-1945 had an energy efficiency rating band D, producing an average of 5.0 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year. This is higher than the average for all dwellings in England at 3.8 tonnes per year.

The energy efficiency of older dwellings has implications for the scale of retrofit needed to make the them more energy efficient and thus more climate resilient. It would cost an average of £9,300 to improve dwellings built prior to 1945 to an energy efficiency rating of band C or above, Annex Table 3.

Dwellings built pre-1945 were more likely to have a gas fired heating system than newer dwellings, with around nine in ten homes using this system as their main fuel type (89%). Only 0.2% of dwellings built pre-1945 had mechanical ventilation.

Profile of pre-1945 dwellings

Dwellings built between 1945 to 2012

After the second world war there was a shift in housebuilding. Many houses had been destroyed and, to address the immediate housing shortages, prefabricated homes (short life homes) were built. Rather than traditional construction materials like brick, these homes often used steel, wood and other industrial materials (100 years of council housing, BRE Group).

In 2023, there were around 14.7 million dwellings constructed between 1945 and 2012. Following the war, social housebuilding programmes were introduced, where 22% of dwellings built between 1945 and 2012 were social rented, compared with just 7% of dwellings pre-1945. Around 62% of dwellings built during this period were owner occupied and 16% private rented, Annex Table 1.

The dwelling type profile for homes built between 1945 and 2012 differed from those built pre-1945, where the most common type was mid terrace and semi-detached. Instead, between 1945 and 2012 the predominant dwelling type was detached/bungalow (31%), followed by flats (24%) and semi-detached (24%).

With the introduction of more flats and social rented dwellings between 1945 to 2012 it is not surprising the energy efficiency of the dwellings built during this time was higher than those constructed pre-1945. Almost two thirds (62%) of dwellings had an energy efficiency rating of band A to C, compared with just 29% of dwellings built pre-1945, Annex Table 2.

To improve dwellings built between 1945 to 2012 to an energy efficiency rating (EER) of at least a band C, it would cost on average £5,100, Annex Table 3.

The average CO2 emitted by dwellings built between 1945 and 2012 was 3.3 tonnes per year, considerably lower than the 5.0 tonnes per year for homes built pre-1945, Annex Table 2.

Cavity wall insulation was much higher for dwellings built between 1945 and 2012. Around 65% of homes had cavity wall insulation, compared with 17% of pre-1945 dwellings. Around a quarter of dwellings had cavity walls which were uninsulated (25%).

While the most common heating system in dwellings built between 1945 and 2012 was gas (85%), there was less reliance on solid/oil fired systems (2% compared with 5% in pre-1945 dwellings), and more reliance on electrical systems (10% compared with 5% in pre-1945 dwellings). Additionally, communal systems were more popular in dwellings constructed between 1945 and 2012 compared with those built pre-1945, with 3% of dwellings constructed between 1945 and 2012 having communal systems, compared with less than 1% in pre-1945 dwellings.

Similar to homes built pre-1945, fewer than 1% of dwellings built between 1945 and 2012 had mechanical ventilation. Moreover, the majority of homes built during this time period were located in urban areas (93%), with only 7% built in rural areas, Annex Table 1.

Profile of dwellings between 1945 and 2012

Dwellings built post 2012

New building regulations introduced in 2013 meant new dwellings had tighter controls on energy efficiency and carbon emissions.

In 2023, 1.8 million homes were constructed after 2012. Of these, 68% were owner occupied, 15% private rented and 17% social rented. The proportion of social rented dwellings was lower than the 22% of dwellings built between 1945 and 2012, while the proportion of owner occupied was higher (68% compared with 62%), Annex Table 1.

Because of the tighter building regulations, we would expect dwellings that were built post 2012 to have higher energy efficiency ratings, however, this could also be influenced by changes in tenure profile and dwelling type over this period. The majority of dwellings built after 2012 had an energy efficiency rating of A to C (95%). This was higher than dwellings built pre-1945 (29%) and between 1945 and 2012 (62%), Annex Table 2.

For the dwellings in this age group with an EER of below a band C, it would cost, on average, £2,500 to improve them beyond this threshold, a considerably lower sum compared with dwellings built between 2012 and 1945 and pre-1945, reflecting the lower proportion of dwellings in bands D or lower, Annex Table 3.

Homes built post 2012 (2.2 tonnes per year) produced fewer tonnes of CO2 emissions on average compared with older homes (5.0 and 3.3 tonnes per year), Annex Table 2.

The most common dwelling type for dwellings built post 2012 were detached houses or bungalows (33%), followed by flats (27%). While this was a similar profile to dwellings built between 1945 and 2012, there was a smaller proportion of semi-detached homes built post 2012 (20%) than between 1945 and 2012 (24%) and pre-1945 (27%), Annex Table 1.

Dwellings constructed post 2012 were more prevalent in urban areas (83%), though there was a higher proportion of dwellings built post 2012 in rural areas (17%) compared with dwellings built pre-1945 (10%) and between 1945 and 2012 (7%).

With new building regulations in place, it’s not surprising to find that 84% of dwellings built post 2012 had cavity wall insulation, a much larger proportion compared with homes built prior to 1945 (17%) and between 1945 and 2012 (65%). Solid wall insulation was at a similar level to pre-1945 with both at 5%, Annex Table 2.

Like older dwellings, the most common heating system for homes built post 2012 was a gas fired system (78%), although the proportion of these systems in newer dwellings were smaller when compared with dwellings constructed earlier (89% and 85%, respectively). Electrical heating systems were more prevalent in newer homes than old, with 11% of dwellings built post 2012 using them compared with 5% of pre-1945 dwellings. Likewise, communal systems were more likely to be used in homes built post 2012 (10%) than in dwellings built between 1945 and 2012 (3%) and pre-1945 (less than 1%).

Profile of dwellings post 2012

2. Subjective overheating, by age of dwelling and household characteristics

This section relates to households and presents data for ‘2023-24’.  Fieldwork was carried out from March 2023 to March 2024, inclusive, and the terminology reflects this. Please see the headline findings for further information.

The figures in this section describe the composition of households that reported overheating within each dwelling age group and do not indicate whether certain groups are more or less likely to experience overheating overall. The proportions presented below will be partly driven by the demographic profile of households in homes of a particular age, as well as reflecting who is impacted by uncomfortably hot or cold homes.

One of the risks to the home from climate change is overheating. The headline findings on housing quality and energy efficiency show that households in newer homes were more likely to report overheating than those in older homes.

In 2023-24, 2.9 million households reported that their home got uncomfortably hot. Of those, 880,000 lived in homes built pre-1945, 1.8 million lived in homes built between 1945 and 2012 and 250,000 lived in homes built post 2012, Annex Table 4.

Dwellings built pre-1945

Of the 880,000 households that reported their pre-1945 home getting uncomfortably hot, just under three quarters were owner occupiers (72%) while just 22% were private renters and around 6% were social renters.

There was a higher proportion of households with middle aged household reference persons (HRPs), aged 35 to 49 and 50 to 64, that reported overheating in their homes (29% and 33%, respectively) than households with younger HRPs aged 16 to 34 and older HRPs aged 65 or over (both 19%).

Among households reporting overheating, the most common household type was couples with no dependent children (35%), this was followed by couples with children (25%) and one person households (24%). In terms of income, over a quarter of households reporting overheating were in the highest income quintile (26%), while the proportion for those in the lowest quintile was lower at 13%.

Dwellings built between 1945 and 2012

Out of those who reported overheating, a greater proportion were owner occupiers (67%) followed by social renters (18%) and private renters (15%), Annex Table 4.

There were more households with a HRP aged 35 or older (ranging from 26% to 31%) who reported overheating, while just 16% of those who reported overheating were the youngest households, with a HRP aged between 16 and 34 years old. This differs from households living in dwellings built pre-1945, likely reflecting the distribution of the age of HRP living in older and newer dwellings.

As with dwellings built before 1945, among households reporting overheating, around a third (32%) were couples with no dependent children, a quarter were couples with children (25%) and 7% were lone parent households.

Dwellings built post 2012

Focusing on households living in newer homes constructed post 2012, of those who reported overheating, more were owner occupiers (72%), with social renters making up a fifth of the total (20%) and private renters the remaining 8%, Annex Table 4.

More younger households reported overheating than older households. Around 41% of households that reported overheating were those with a HRP aged between 16 and 34 compared with households aged 50 to 64 and 65 or over (both 16%).

Among households that reported overheating, around 38% were couples with no dependent children, 19% were couples with dependent children and 9% were lone parents.

In terms of income, 42% of these households were in the highest income quintile, while the remaining quintiles each accounted for between 11% and 18% of those overheating in dwellings built post 2012.

Households reporting overheating by dwelling age

3. Ability to keep warm and dwelling age by household characteristics

Cold weather conditions can have a negative impact on the health of households. The ability to keep warm in dwellings is important in ensuring homes are climate resilient. Households were asked whether they could normally keep comfortably warm in their living room during the cold winter weather.

Around 3.2 million households in 2023-24 were unable to keep warm during winter (see the Health and Housing factsheet for more on this related to health conditions). Of those, 1.4 million households lived in homes bult pre-1945, 1.7 million households lived in homes built between 1945 and 2012, and 86,000 households lived in homes built post 2012, Annex Table 5.

Dwellings built pre-1945

Of those who lived in a dwelling built pre-1945 and reported being unable to keep warm in winter, over half were owner occupiers (52%) with private renters making up 33% and the remaining 14% made up of social renters.

In pre-1945 dwellings, households with a middle aged HRP (aged 35 to 49 and 50 to 64) made up the largest proportions of those unable to keep warm in winter (33% and 30%, respectively). Younger households, with a HRP aged 16 to 34, accounted for 21%, while older households with a HRP aged 65 or over made up 16%.

Similar to the overheating analysis mentioned above, out of those who reported being unable to keep warm in a pre-1945 dwelling, a quarter were couples with no dependent children (26%), while 21% were couples with dependent children and 11% were lone parents.

In contrast to the analysis on overheating, households living in homes built pre-1945 that reported being unable to keep warm were composed of a greater proportion of those in the lowest income quintile (28%), with all other quintiles accounting for between 14% and 20% each.

Dwellings built between 1945 and 2012

Focusing on homes built between 1945 and 2012, of those who reported not being able to keep warm in winter, there was a high proportion of social renters (42%) with owner occupiers making up 33%, and private renters the remaining 25%. This was different to dwellings built pre-1945 where over half of those who reported not being able to keep warm in winter were owner occupiers (52%).

The profile for age of HRP living in dwellings built between 1945 and 2012 was similar to dwellings built pre-1945. Of those who reported not being able to keep warm in winter, most were households with a middle aged HRP, aged 35 to 49 and 50 to 64, (34% and 27%, respectively), with around one fifth being younger households with a HRP aged 16 to 34 years (21%).

Of those who reported being unable to keep warm in winter, 22% were couples with no dependent children, while couples with dependent children made up 18% and lone parents 14%.

Dwellings built post 2012

Continuing the trend seen with homes built between 1945 and 2012, of those who reported not being able to keep warm 44% were social renters, while 18% were private renters and around a third were owner occupiers (38%).

Over half of households that reported not being able to keep warm had a HRP aged 16 to 34 year olds (51%), while those with middle aged HRPs ranged from 18% to 29%.

Households reporting being unable to keep warm by dwelling age

4. Moisture damage by household characteristics

A new question was added to the EHS in 2023-24 to ask households if they had noticed any new moisture damage to their homes following a storm in the past year. While the question can be broken down by household characteristics, two consecutive years’ worth of data is needed for break downs by dwelling characteristics such as dwelling age, and so the following analysis will focus on household characteristics only.

Around 3.8 million (15%) of households reported that they had experienced new damage to their homes caused by water following a storm, Annex Table 6.

There was a higher proportion of private renters (21%) who reported experiencing moisture damage to their homes following a storm compared with social renters (18%) and owner occupiers (13%).

Younger households were more likely to report storm damage than older households. Households with a HRP aged between 16 and 49 (19% to 20%) were more likely to report experiencing new damage to their homes caused by water following a recent storm compared with all other households (10% to 15%).

Households in the lowest (first) income quintile (17%) were more likely to report experiencing storm damage compared with households in the third, fourth and fifth income quintiles (14% to 15%).

Around a quarter of lone parents with dependent children reported experiencing water damage following a recent storm (25%), higher than couples with (19%) and without (13%) dependent children, and single person households (12%).

Other multi-person households (22%) and couples with dependent children (19%) were also more likely to report water damage to their homes following a recent storm compared with households comprising of couples without dependent children (13%) and single person households (12%).

Households with someone with a long-term illness or disability were more likely to report moisture damage to their homes following a storm (18%) compared with those without (14%).

Households living in London were more likely to report damage to their homes caused by water following a storm (19%) compared with those in the North West (16%), East Midlands (15%), West Midlands (13%), East of England (11%) and the North East (11%).

Households in the South West (18%) and Yorkshire and the Humber (17%) were also more likely to report water damage to their homes following a storm compared with those in the West Midlands (13%), East of England (11%) and the North East (11%).

Households living in London were more likely to report water damage in their homes following a storm

5. Working from home by tenure and energy costs

Households where the HRP was employed, either full-time or part-time, were asked whether anyone in their household worked from home on a regular basis. The majority of households (46%) did not have someone who worked from home on a regular basis. However, if someone in the household did work from home regularly, there was a higher proportion of households with someone working from home four or more days a week (29%), Annex Table 7.

Tenure

Working from home was more common among owner occupiers. Owner occupiers were more likely to have someone in the household work from home four or more days a week (34%) than private renters (24%). Both groups were more likely to report this than social renters (12%). Owner occupiers were also more likely to have someone in the household work from home two or three days a week (21%) than private renters (18%). Similarly, both groups were more likely to report this than social renters (7%).

Owner occupiers were still more likely to have someone in the household work from home once a week (5%) than private and social renters (both 2%). In contrast, there was a considerably higher proportion of social renters reporting that no one in the household worked from home on a regular basis (77%) compared with private renters (54%) and owner occupiers (38%).

Energy costs

Energy costs were higher for households working from home (though this analysis does not control for size of the home or dwelling type). Households with no one working from home had a lower average energy cost per year (£1,521) than households with someone working from home on a regular basis (£1,693 to £1,791). Households with someone working from home four or more days a week had a higher average energy cost (£1,791) than those with someone working from home two or three days a week (£1,693).

Working at home on a regular basis (4 or more days a week) costs households more on average

6. Reasons why EPC improvement recommendations were carried out

Existing homes will need retrofitting to meet the challenge of climate change, and the government’s aspiration for as many homes as possible to be EER band C by 2035. Owner occupiers whose Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) recommended improvement work were asked whether they had carried out any work to their home. Over half of respondents (55%) reported that they had carried out at least one of the improvements recommended on their EPC, Annex Table 8.

Households who had done at least one of the jobs recommended on their EPC were then asked their reason for doing this job. Households were more likely to report their reasons as “wanting to reduce the energy bill” (69%) or “doing it as part of refurbishment to the home” (63%) than “wanting to make their home feel warmer” (53%) and “wanting to help with global warming/climate change” (32%), Annex Table 9.

Wanting to reduce the energy bill

Couples with no dependent children (78%) were more likely to report “wanting to reduce the energy bill” as a reason for carrying out work recommended on the EPC than couples with dependent children (63%).

Doing it as part of refurbishment to the home

Households with a (HRP) aged between 35 to 49 (67%) and 50 to 64 (66%) were more likely to report “doing it as part of refurbishment to their home” as a reason for carrying out work recommended on the EPC than households with a HRP aged 65 or over (45%).

Wanting to make their home feel warmer

Households with a HRP aged between 35 to 49 and 50 to 64 were more likely to report “wanting to make their home feel warmer” as a reason for carrying out work recommended on the EPC (64% and 58%, respectively) than households with HRPs aged 65 or over (37%). Households with a HRP aged between 35 to 49 were also more like to report this reason than those aged between 16 and 34 (39%).

Couples with dependent children were more likely to report “wanting to make their home feel warmer” as a reason for carrying out work recommended by the EPC (66%) than couples without dependent children (43%).

Wanting to help with global warming/climate change

Households living in rural areas were more likely to report “wanting to help with global warming/climate change” as a reason for carrying out work recommended on the EPC (52%) than those living in urban areas (30%).

Households with an income in the highest quintile (5th) were more likely to report “wanting to help with global warming/climate change” as a reason for carrying out work recommended on the EPC (39%) than those in the second income quintile (21%).

The most common reasons owner occupiers carried out EPC recommendations were to reduce the energy bill, as part of refurbishment, to make the home feel warmer and help with climate change

7. Reasons why EPC improvement recommendations were not carried out

Owner occupiers who had not done any of the jobs recommended on the EPC (45%) were then asked their reasons for not carrying out any of the recommended work, Annex Table 8. Households were most likely to report that “it was too expensive” (46%) as an explanation for not carrying out recommended works, followed by “other reasons” (reasons aside from the list of options provided to respondents) (39%), and “it would cause too much disruption” (13%), Annex Table 10.

Households were also more likely to report they felt the work was “not needed” (12%) compared with not knowing “how to find the right person to do the work” (6%), not knowing “how to do the work” (4%), that they “didn’t understand the benefits doing the work would bring” (4%), were unable to “find someone who was available to do the work” (4%) and that “the outcome of the work will spoil the appearance of the property (3%).

Owner occupiers were more likely to cite expense as the main reason for not carrying out EPC recommendations