Housing with damp problems
Published
1. Main facts and figures
- in the 2 years to March 2019, an average of 3% of households in England had damp in at least one room of their home
- Mixed White and Black Caribbean (13%), Bangladeshi (10%), Black African (9%) and Pakistani (8%) households were more likely to have damp problems than White British households (3%)
2. Things you need to know
What the data measures
The data measures the percentage of households in England with damp in one or more rooms.
A home with damp has either:
- rising damp, where water slowly moves up the lower sections of walls and other ground-supported structures
- penetrating damp, where water penetrates a building through walls, roofs or windows and appears inside
- serious condensation or mould
The information relates to households of either one person or a group of people sharing cooking facilities and a living room or dining area. It must be their main or only home.
Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number but have been worked out using unrounded numbers.
Not included in the data
Estimates based on fewer than 30 households have not been included. This is because it is harder to make reliable generalisations from smaller numbers of survey respondents.
The ethnic groups used in the data
For data analysed by ethnicity, the 18 ethnic groups from the 2011 Census are shown.
Each household’s ethnic group is the ethnicity of the ‘household reference person’ (usually the person responsible for paying the rent or mortgage). There may be people of different ethnicities in the same household.
The ethnicity was known for 99.8% of households.
Methodology
Read the detailed methodology document for this data.
The data is an average for the 2 years from April 2017 to March 2019. This is to make sure there are enough households to be able to make reliable generalisations. You can read more about combining multiple years of data and some of the issues involved.
The figures on this page are based on survey data. Find out more about:
- interpreting survey data including how reliability is affected by the number of people surveyed
- how weighting is used to make survey results more representative of the whole population they cover
In the data file
See Download the data for:
- figures rounded to 1 decimal place
- sample sizes
- weighted figures for the numerator and denominator
3. By ethnicity
| Ethnicity | % | Number of households with damp | All households |
|---|---|---|---|
| All | 3 | 775 | 23,400 |
| Asian | |||
| Bangladeshi | 10 | 11 | 112 |
| Chinese | 2 | 3 | 135 |
| Indian | 2 | 9 | 514 |
| Pakistani | 8 | 27 | 342 |
| Asian other | 4 | 9 | 206 |
| Black | |||
| Black African | 9 | 42 | 448 |
| Black Caribbean | 2 | 5 | 302 |
| Black other | 10 | 2 | 24 |
| Mixed | |||
| Mixed White/Asian | 0 | 0 | 63 |
| Mixed White/Black African | 11 | 5 | 46 |
| Mixed White/Black Caribbean | 13 | 10 | 74 |
| Mixed other | 0 | 0 | 93 |
| White | |||
| White British | 3 | 597 | 19,313 |
| White Irish | 1 | 2 | 215 |
| White Gypsy/Traveller | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable |
| White other | 4 | 49 | 1,220 |
| Other | |||
| Arab | 3 | 2 | 59 |
| Any other | 1 | 2 | 230 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Housing with damp problems By ethnicity Summary
The data shows that:
- in the 2 years to March 2019, an average of 3% of households in England had damp in at least one room of their home
- Mixed White and Black Caribbean (13%), Bangladeshi (10%), Black African (9%) and Pakistani (8%) households were more likely to have damp than White British households (3%)
- although households from Mixed White and Black African (11%) and Black Other (10%) backgrounds were more likely than White British households to have damp, findings for these groups are based on a small number of households and may not be reliable
4. Data sources
Source
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
National Statistics
Publisher
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Note on corrections or updates
Information published in the EHS headline report and other annual reports is usually based on a 12-month period, rather than the 2 years’ combined data used here. As a result, the statistics shown here may not match those in the EHS reports.
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
The English Housing Survey is a continuous national survey commissioned by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It collects information about people’s housing circumstances and the condition and energy efficiency of housing in England.
5. Download the data
This file contains the following variables: Measure, Time, Time_type, Ethnicity, Ethnicity_type, Geography, Age_group, NS-SEC, Income_band, Region, Value, Numerator, Denominator, Sample_size