The Qualitel Association presents the 1st inventory of French housing

Carried out on a sample of 1.000 dwellings, combining measurements and observations, this study makes it possible to understand how housing has evolved over time and what it looks like today. Verdict: "Good, even very good on some points, but can do even better on others ...".

Focus on some lessons from this new QUALITEL Housing Meeting *.

From before the war to the present day: how has French housing evolved over the last century?

Over the past decades, French housing has evolved, particularly in terms of configurations and layout. So for example:

• An exterior ... absolutely, including in collective real estate: more than 1 in 2 apartments (54%) are now equipped with a balcony and / or a terrace. In less than a century, the proportion of apartments with exterior has thus multiplied by 3! And access to the outside is also played out ... through the window: in houses for example, the glazed surface has gained 2,1m² since the pre-war period, reaching, since 2009, an average of 6,2m² ( 4,9m² in apartments less than 10 years old, ie 1,7m² more than before the war).
• Always less storage: from the cellar to the attic, via the built-in cupboard, the spaces facilitating storage and tidying up are gradually disappearing. In a century, the share of dwellings with a cellar has been divided by 12 and that of dwellings with an attic, by 3,5. A loss of space not compensated for by built-in cupboards: only 49% of recent homes are equipped with 2 or more built-in cupboards (41% in apartments and 60% in houses).
• Fewer through apartments: 50% of apartments over 10 years old are through, compared to 32% of the most recent. With a more restrictive design, they are often less economical for the project and therefore less privileged.

Bathroom side:

• Shower or bath, the house has not chosen: 1/4 of houses have at least one shower AND one bath, compared to only 6% of apartments. Overall, the duel is nevertheless won by the shower, which today equips 61% of homes. More demanding in water and on the surface, the bathtub, present in 56% of homes, has been losing ground over the past ten years.
• Lack of window ... and hot water: 37% of bathrooms do not have a window. This is, logically, all the more true in apartments: only 38% have a window in the wet room v / s 81% for houses. When it comes to hot water, the bathroom can also do even better: for 41% of homes, hot water at an ideal temperature of 38 ° takes more than 30 seconds to reach the main bathroom, i.e. an average annual waste of 7 liters of water.

Insulation & heating: is the ecological transition underway?

Housing is gradually adapting to the great challenge of the century: global warming. Under the impetus of successive regulations, thermal insulation has become widespread, renewable energies are starting to develop ... These developments should intensify and accelerate with the 2020 RE. In detail:

• In houses, endangered fossil fuels, renewable energies in the beginning: the number of gas-heated homes has been divided by 2 and fuel oil has been banned from recent constructions. Conversely, heat pumps and electricity have become more democratic.

• The renewable energies tend to develop: they now represent 8% of individual heating methods, 10% of houses are equipped with thermodynamic or solar water heaters, 25% of the most recent are natively equipped with renewable energies v / s 7% of over 10 years, etc.
• From 1980, insulation becomes the standard and tends towards systematization: 100% of homes built after 2009 are thermally insulated. Also contributing to efficient insulation, double glazing has also become the norm: 91% of homes built before 1979 are equipped with it ... even though it did not become popular until the end of the 1970s. hui, 94% of the dwellings are equipped with double or triple glazing.
• Shutters on all windows ... or almost: 8 out of 10 dwellings are fully equipped with blackouts, 54% of which have roller shutters.

Progress remains to be made: where to start, what to insist?

In some areas, housing can do even better. The QUALITEL Association thus commits the actors of the sector to continue their efforts on various points of improvement, among which:

• Humidity and associated mold: Admittedly less numerous with the ventilation which has become the norm in damp rooms, mold is still a party spoiler: almost 1 in 5 homes have mold visible to the naked eye, in bathrooms, but also in bedrooms . In the latter, the humidity rate is particularly high: 3 out of 10 dwellings have a humidity rate greater than 60% in the bedrooms (v / s 55% recommended by doctors).
• Security against theft and intrusion: the door remains the weakness of French housing in terms of security. In 4 out of 10 dwellings, this door has less than 3 “real” closing points, the minimum required by insurance companies. And when the door is impassable, the burglar goes through the window. However, on the ground floor, only 1/3 of the apartments have windows fitted with bars or blackout.
• Adaptation of buildings to the elderly and disabled, which is still progressing too slowly: 2 collective residential buildings out of 3 do not have a lift. And when there is one, 1 in 5 inhabitants must climb stairs before reaching it. Difficult constraints on a daily basis, for all those who suffer from loss of autonomy. 60% of French people say they are dissatisfied with the adaptation of their housing to disabled people.

Survey carried out by IPSOS for the QUALITEL Association, from May 23 to July 26, 2019

Available for download at this address.