Since 2000, the proportion of heat pumps in Swiss buildings has increased fivefold. This is shown by the new building and housing statistics from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), which were published on Monday.

According to the FSO, 37 per cent of buildings were heated with heating oil last year, 21 per cent with a heat pump and 17 per cent with gas. In urban communities, 29 per cent of buildings were heated with gas, in rural communities only 4 per cent. In addition, twelve per cent were heated with wood and eight per cent with electricity.

There has been a slight increase in the use of wood in new buildings. While 5.3 per cent of new buildings were equipped with wood heating in the period from 2001 to 2010, this figure rose to 5.5 per cent in the period from 2011 to 2023. In comparison: before 1946, 24 per cent of buildings had a wood heating system installed.

Single-family homes with few residents

The statistics also show that there were 1.79 million buildings used for residential purposes in Switzerland in 2023. More than one million of these were single-family homes. Of these, a good half were occupied by just one or two people. In addition to single-family homes, 4.79 million flats were counted.

The average living space in the flats was a good 102 square metres. Just over half of the flats have three or four rooms. The average living space of an occupied flat was therefore 46.2 square metres - a figure that has remained the same since 2022. People in Eastern Switzerland (49.6 square metres) and Ticino (49.5 square metres) had the most living space at their disposal.

Source: schweizerbauer.ch