Scotland's Housing Stock

We used the 2015 Scottish Housing Condition Survey (SHCS) to gather data about dwelling types, ages, heating systems, sizes, and U-values for the existing building stock of Scotland. This page is a summary of the information we collected in the process of this research.

Building Types

The SHCS defines 4 types of property that exist within the Scottish residential housing stock.

Flats
A flat is a living area that is self-contained and in one part of a building. A building is usually split into individual flats and the communal areas are those that are shared e.g. lifts, stairwells, receptions etc. Flats include maisonettes, 2-storey flats and tenements. Flats make up the highest proportion of buildings in Scotland.

Detached
These are private single standing properties and tend to be the highest in terms of price and demand.

Semi-detached
These properties are paired together by a common wall and are designed to use less space than detached houses.

Terraced
Common in old industrial towns, terraced houses became extremely popular during the 20th Century as they provided high density accommodation for the working class. Terraced houses are structurally built the same and both sides of each house shares walls with neighbours.

Age of Building

Three age sectors were defined in the SHCS: pre-1919, 1919-1982 and post-1982. Each age sector is characterised by different architectural features, wall types, insulation levels and other factors.

Fuel Types

The graph on the left is taken from the SHCS and depicts the spread of heating fuel types across building types and ages. Gas is the most dominant fuel type, with 79% of the Scottish housing stock running on gas, 12% on electric, while oil and other fuel types account for only 10%.

Building Condition

For our housing stock model, we based our base models on 2 condition variations per building: "as-built" and "improved". These were based on the EU Energy Performance Buildings Directive (EPBD) and Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) data. EPCs were introduced in January 2009 under the requirements of the EPBD. They provide environmental impact and energy efficiency ratings based on a standard calculation method known as Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP). SAP is a UK Government-approved method of assessing building performance. The SAP assessment mainly consists of:

energy demand for space heating
energy demand for water heating
ventilation
lighting control systems
renewables generation

EPCs are required by law for rent and trading purposes.

Energy Efficiency Rating
The Energy Efficiency Rating (EER) is expressed on a scale of 1-100 where a rating of 1 is the lowest performing in terms of energy efficiency and will result in high fuel bills, and 100 demonstrates very high energy efficiency. If the house is generating more energy than it uses, the rating may exceed 100. The EER in EPCs are presented over 7 bands, labeled A to G, for a given built form and specific floor area. Band A is the most efficient and Band G is the poorest performing.

For our project's housing stock model based on EPCs and EER, two condition variations per building were introduced.

Median EER relative to EPC bands

The percentage of the housing stock that was improved was based on data gathered from the SHCS. It was assumed that buildings with an EPC band above F were retrofitted. This data was primarily based around the age of the building, however also took into account the building improvements we have specified here.

Our Stock Model

The information we gathered from the 2015 Scottish House Condition Survey was used to generate 72 individual house models, representing the first ever high resolution residential stock model of Scotland.