More and more French people are suffering from living in “boilerplate housing”

More than half of French people felt too hot at home last year. Franceinfo has collected testimonies from several of them.

Poorly insulated homes, poorly adapted cities and more frequent heat waves… Nearly 55% of French people said they had suffered from the heat in their homes for at least 24 hours in 2023. This phenomenon of “boiler houses” is highlighted in the latest report from the Abbé Pierre Foundation, published on Wednesday, August 21. The foundation is calling on public authorities to address this problem, which is getting worse over the years.

The fan runs from May to the end of September in Marion’s apartment, 45 m² located in the east of Paris. Despite a high ceiling, “There is only one large window and therefore absolutely no draft”confides the young woman. In her mezzanine room, the heat is unbearable. “In the summer, sometimes it’s almost 40 degrees in the room when you wake up. You have to find little things to freshen up, even putting wet towels on your body to be able to sleep. Which just goes to show that it’s a bit technical!” she reacts.

Marion embodies several profiles that are particularly affected by these “boiler houses”. She is young, a tenant and lives in the city. “I think above all that we live in an old factory, not really designed to be a home. It’s very beautiful, but it’s very hot.”she says.

Marion is no longer a rare case, worries Hélène Denise, in charge of advocacy on climate and energy issues at the Abbé Pierre Foundation: “Since 2013, so for almost ten years, there has been a 26% increase in the number of people who say they are too hot in their homes”. And this particularly concerns the most precarious, with almost 40% of households earning less than 1,000 euros net per month.

“What we askcontinues Hélène Denise, that the question of adaptation is taken into account in renovation policies, that the question of heat is also integrated into the energy performance diagnosis and then integrated into the decency criteria for renting accommodation.”

The advocacy officer regrets that currently the “fight against thermal sieves” concentrates “especially on reducing our energy consumption, on decarbonizing the heating system, on maintaining a minimum temperature in homes during the winter, and not enough to adapt to heat waves unfortunately”.

“In addition to insulating and improving the ventilation of homes, we should start installing shutters, thinking about solar shading, installing air mixers. We should also perhaps repaint certain facades and roofs with a lighter paint, and plant more vegetation in the streets, courtyards, gardens and balconies.”

Hélène Denise, advocacy officer on climate and energy issues at the Abbé Pierre Foundation

to franceinfo

“It’s a real emergency” for Hélène Denise who believes that “more and more people have health problems” because of this energy insecurity. The heat killed 5,000 people last year, mostly people over 75.