That we're in the mess we are is the clearest indication that there are no easy answers.
Our housing stock is not good enough for the lifestyles we want to live, not without costing an arm and a leg to heat.
My grandparents stone cottage only ever had one fire lit in it unless there were visitors or it was the New Year. Then the second fire, in the "Room" was lit too. Away from the fire the house was cold. The loo was positively arctic at times, even in Summer it was perishing cold in there.
There is a characterisic smell to those old cottages, and it wasn't that they weren't clean, because they were scrubbed and polished religiously, but they had a smell of line dried washing, of polish and persistent damp. Like an old bookshop.
Folks just lived with it. They lived with layers of clothing, of stone pigs in beds, bedwarmers of hot coals in a brass pan, of draughts and soot and endless cleaning.
We don't want to live like that now, but many are still living in those stone cottages, and those not built with decent insulation, homes.
Add in ill health and it becomes a constant worry and a juggle to pay the bills and still keep warm.....just as you wrote above.
Not funny, and I'm not belittling the struggle one whit, but in this economic climate I think it's going to get worse before it gets better, and all the while folks are going to demand clean air, silence (which is an issue with heat pumps in close proximity to neighbours, wind turbines, etc.,) and low bills.
Something's not going to add up. I cannot see you burning trash wood like our neighbour did, but he's far from alone in it.
When our children were small and I was involved with everything from the Scouts to the playgroups, Mothers and Toddlers to Young Wives, jumble sales were commonplace. I ran/helped out with them for years, we made a lot of money to subsidise the groups from them, and once the public had left, and the dealers had taken anything left they wanted for a couple of pounds more, we bagged up everything else for the coup.....except leather shoes. One lady always came in at the end and bought the bag(s) of left over leather shoes for 50p.
I once asked her what she did with them, and she replies, "Oh, h'en, they burn. They burn really well, they'll burn aw night long. Keeps the hoose warm"
There you go, I didn't know that, leather shoes burn long and slow.
I'd hate to see us go back to days like that, but I think some folks are already there.
On the more optimistic note, Spring is definitely on the way, even if Winter's not quite done with us yet.