Wood burning stove statistics: EIR release

Information requested

The Scottish Government recently published the ‘Heat in Buildings: Progress Report 2024’ in it, it says there are 12,000 biomass boilers and that 'As well as biomass boilers, this includes those using a wood burning stove as their primary heating source’.

1. Would the Scottish Government be able to further break this figure down into the number of dwellings using Wood burning stoves as their primary heating source? If so, please provide this data for each year, as far back as possible.

2. Would you also be able to provide the number of total wood burning stoves (as some dwellings have multiple stoves) for each year as far back as possible.

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations.

1. Would the Scottish Government be able to further break this figure down into the number of dwellings using Wood burning stoves as their primary heating source? If so, please provide this data for each year, as far back as possible.

We track the number of properties using biomass as their primary heating source through the Scottish Government’s Scottish Housing Condition Survey (SHCS). Due to the way in which data are recorded in the survey, it is not possible to disaggregate further to determine the number of dwellings using wood burning stoves as their primary heating source. Wood burning stoves would fall under room heaters with solid or biomass fuel, but this could include a combination of heating appliances, including open fire.

Published EPC data (Domestic Energy Performance Certificates dataset) contain information on fuel types used for the main heating system and secondary heating system, which includes ‘room heaters using wood logs’. However, the heating system (for example, open fire or wood burning stove) is not specified. The data are limited to the portion of the building stock that has an EPC.

2. Would you also be able to provide the number of total wood burning stoves (as some dwellings have multiple stoves) for each year as far back as possible.

We are not aware of any data source that could provide the total number of wood burning stoves in Scotland.

As noted in our response to point 1, information on heating systems, including secondary heating (where present) can be found within published EPC data (Domestic Energy Performance Certificates dataset). Noting again that the data are limited to the portion of the building stock that has an EPC.

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The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.