Method, sources and downloads
The data behind this site
Almost every figure here is counted straight from the Energy Performance of Buildings Register, the public record of every EPC lodged in England and Wales. One is calculated rather than counted, and it is labelled as such on its own page. Nothing is forecast, fitted or estimated.
For journalists
The tables and CSVs are free to reuse, including commercially, under the Open Government Licence v3.0. No permission needed, no paywall, no form. A link back is appreciated but not required.
If you want a cut we have not published, a figure for a specific constituency, or a sanity check on a number before you run it, ask. We would rather help you get it right than see it misquoted.
Email press@offgasgrant.co.uk. A real person reads it.
Downloads
- Councils by oil and LPG homes CSV. The number of homes heated by oil or LPG in each council area.
- Councils by share off the gas grid CSV. The share of homes in each council area running on oil or LPG.
- Postcode districts by oil and LPG homes CSV. The number of homes heated by oil or LPG in each postcode district.
- Highest heat pump adoption CSV. The share of homes whose current EPC shows a heat pump.
- Most heat pumps installed CSV. Homes with no heat pump on their first EPC and one on their latest: conversions that actually happened.
How the figures are counted
One row per property, not per certificate
A property can have several EPCs over the years. We keep only the most recent one for each, identified by its UPRN where it has one. Counting lodgements instead would overstate everything by about half.
Oil and LPG, not "off-gas"
We count homes whose main heating fuel is oil or LPG. An electrically heated flat is also off the gas grid, but it usually sits on a street with a gas main and so does not qualify for the off-gas uplift. Folding the two together would roughly triple the headline figure and make it wrong.
One trap worth knowing if you work with this data yourself: the register writes fuels as "oil (not community)" and "LPG (not community)". The parenthetical means the fuel is not part of a community heating scheme, but it contains the word "community", so a naive text match classifies every off-grid home in England as community heat.
England and Wales only
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme covers England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland run separate schemes and are excluded entirely.
One figure is calculated, and it says so
Everything here is a count from certificates, with one exception: the like-for-like comparison, which standardises each council's oil and LPG conversion rate against its own housing stock, so being rural stops being the whole answer. It lives on its own page, is labelled as derived above the fold, and sets out its method and limits in full, including two earlier versions that were wrong and why.
What this is not
These counts cover property with a current certificate and a recorded main fuel. A home that has never needed an EPC will not appear, so treat these as a floor rather than a total.
The numbers, as they stand
| Properties with a current certificate | 20,306,636 |
|---|---|
| Privately rented | 3,487,168 |
| Privately rented below EPC C | 1,846,062 |
| Share of the rented sector below EPC C | 52.9% |
| Heated by oil or LPG | 814,824 |
Policy figures on this site are stored with the date they were last checked against the source, and the site refuses to build with anything older than 90 days. Boiler Upgrade Scheme was last checked on 21 September 2026.
Licence and attribution
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. © Crown copyright. The source data is published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government at get-energy-performance-data.communities.gov.uk.