Sadly, we are a post-industrial post-colonial country. We don't make much, we sell goods and services to each other, or make money through squeezing people who have hobson's choice when it comes to housing. (Sorry, bit cynical. NB I am NOT landlord bashing.)
Our older houses were designed to be heated by coal fires, which give out the right sort of heat, require ventilation, and generate a certain amount of water, which keeps the air moist. Until I was 11, our house had coal fires, like the majority of London houses - I come originally from a suburb in Zone 4. Then the Clean Air Act was passed, and my DF had gas fires put in. When he died in 2016 he still lived in that very same house, he still had no central heating, still had gas fires (newer ones) and the water was still heated with an electric immersion heater. Unlike in my childhood, the bathroom was by then heated by a wall-mounted electric fire, which by then probably would have not been allowed under modern building regulations.
(By the way, people forget that up till the late 1960s, London buildings were Black with soot, and I mean BLACK.)
Since then, our climate has got noticeably wetter, with much less snow each winter. We have prioritised minimising heat loss from our dwellings, at the expense of ventilation, and we no longer routinely dry our clothes outside on the washing line - in England, you need someone at home, who can keep an eye on the weather, and take in, and put out again, the washing accordingly. We also wash our clothes much more frequently than we used to - I never wash anything after a single wearing, unless it's all sweaty or something most likely tomato sauce down my front again.
All this means that there is now a serious problem with black mould in very many dwellings.
I live on my own in an all-electric flat. Costs are not too high, because I have never heated my bedroom, ever (unless it was also my sitting-room in a shared house). I only heat the living room, and that has a very good modern electric radiator. Most importantly to me, it is not a night-storage heater. It gives out heat only when I want it to.
I have a large modern hot water boiler, and probably waste money heating water and then not using it all. A tankful will provide enough water for a bath, plus a day's washing up. Plus point is that I have slatted shelving about it, which means I have somewhere I can air clothes when they are nearly dry.
I do not iron, and have no tumbler drier - but I had a condenser drier and ironed the odd bit of school uniform and work clothes when I was still married, and we were bringing up our 2 DC. A drier is expensive to run, though (anything that generates heat will generally be more expensive to run compared with, say, a TV or computer).
I hope this essay is of some help! I was seized by the Muse, and could not resist 