Housing, Conso, Energy: composite portrait of the worst thermal strainers classified G+

G+ housing, what does that mean?

The energy performance of a dwelling is expressed by a letter, obtained thanks to the DPE. The most efficient and high-performance dwellings bear the letter A and the worst the letter G. Moreover, all dwellings classified F and G are considered thermal sieves and are the first targets of the rental bans in the Climate and Resilience.

• 511.000 G+ rated accommodations in France, including 191.000 currently rented
• A majority of houses, built before 1948 and heated by gas
• Creuse, Cantal, Nièvre and Allier, departments with the highest density of "worst" thermal sieves

For Audrey Zermati, strategy director of the Effy group: “From January 2023, the most energy-intensive homes can no longer be rented**. A ban that concerns 191.000 housing units (including 140.000 in private rental stock). For landlords, selling their property is not essential. Because in the same way as owner-occupiers, they have access to a range of financial aid to renovate their home and thus quickly change energy class. At the end of the work, the accommodation can thus quickly be rented out again, providing tenant occupants with a more acceptable level of comfort and lower bills. »

Houses built before 1948 and mostly heated by gas

There are currently 511.000 G+ classified homes in France. Among them, 63% are houses. Their surface is most often between 60 and 100m2.

Most of these dwellings were built before 1948 (60%). These are buildings that do not comply with current thermal regulations (RT 2012 or even RE 2020) and have never been renovated.

This is directly felt at the level of the heating energies used, with an over-representation of dwellings equipped with fossil fuel installations. Thus, thermal colanders rated G+ are mainly heated with gas (46%) or fuel oil (33%).

37% of G+ housing is currently rented. From January 1, 2023, it will be prohibited to put this type of property on the rental market or to renew a lease without carrying out work.

While the majority of G+ rated accommodations are owner-occupied (63%), 37% are currently rented.

The latter are directly affected from January 2023 by the rental ban. From this date, it will no longer be possible to offer new properties of this type for rental or to renew the lease of a property classified G+ already rented.

A higher proportion of G+ housing in Creuse, Cantal, Allier and Nièvre

Energy-intensive housing is fairly evenly distributed between urban agglomerations and rural areas.

However, some rural departments stand out for their high proportion of G+ housing: this is the case of Creuse, Cantal, Nièvre and Allier. Conversely, thermal sieves rated G+ are rare in Bouches-du-Rhône, Southern Corsica, Haute-Corse, Gard and Hérault.

Sources

*National Observatory for Energy Renovation - Housing stock by energy performance class as of January 1, 2022

*Fidéli 2020, database of DPE December 2021-March 2022 from Ademe

***As of January 1, 2023, the provisions only apply to new rental contracts concluded from this date and in mainland France for dwellings consuming more than 450 kWh/m² in final energy