No chimney!

[Little Lou]

Please, I need help. I've come up against a problem so basic it makes a nonsense of all my prepping, and I definitely need wiser heads than mine to help me through it.

I live in a smokeless zone. No problem there, no-one's going to be enforcing it post SHTF, but my house (like all the others in the village) has no working chimney. There is one, but it's blocked and bricked over, and I can't persuade my husband to have it opened up. He has a good point, since it's stuck weirdly on a corner of an extension, where any fire would be so close to the adjoining wall and window it would be bound to singe the curtains. Opening it would cost in excess of £1,000 and would massively reduce the value of the house.

So what do I do?

I plan to bug in, and mine is otherwise a very good location - large village on high ground, less than 1,000 population, near enough woods and streams and lakes to be viable, but not so close to farms as to make an obvious target. But I don't see how we can survive here for long without a chimney.

Cooking I can deal with outside (camping stoves plus brick built barbecue I'm adapting to double as an oven) and even a little inside (haybox plus meths-fuelled fondue set designed for indoor use), but it's the heating element I'm worried about. I accept that after SHTF we're all going to be colder, and have stocked up on thermal underwear etc, but if there's no heat source in the house at all then surely the walls and furnishings will get damp, and that's not good for health.

I've looked at various options. The first is that in the event of disaster we just bash the fireplace open anyway - but it's been closed for at least ten years, and apart from anything else we have jackdaws in the area. That chimney will need thorough unblocking before it can draw anything at all - and we don't have the specialist kit. Do you think we could do it ourselves if necessary?

The second is to get a multi-fuel burner which comes with its own flue - but I've seen a lot of advice against this online. I also have to persuade my husband into it, and since we're currently only allowed to install certain types of burner and specialized (expensive) fuel, I can't offer it as a money-saving option. He'd love to burn wood - and we've got plenty of it round the house - but as things stand it's against the law. I'll push for it anyway if you guys think it will work, but I've seen advice suggesting it's not very safe.

The third is to bug out after all - but there's nowhere nearby that has a working chimney anyway. My absolute last-resort long-distance BOL does have one, but it's 300 miles away and may not be practical to reach in a disaster. I do have plans for getting there on foot (including caches placed en route so the journey can be taken in stages) but it all seems a bit desperate.

The fourth is of course to move house right now - but we can't afford it, and my husband really has to be here for the sake of his job.

I'm sorry to be so feeble, but does anyone have any advice for me at all? I'm hoping I'm just being stupid, and there's an obvious solution I've completely missed, but I'm very afraid the problem may be terminal. I've been busy tending my very first attempts at growing vegetables, but it's all beginning to seem like a waste of time if we can't stay here anyway.

I'd be very grateful for any thoughts.