http://www.healthplanspain.com/blog/spain-news/195-expats-set-to-lose-winter-fuel-allowance-under-new-cuts.html#.VmGp_StLOrV

I used to jokingly refer to my late mother's Winter Fuel Payments as her Summer Cooling Allowance when she lived here.  UK in winter or Spain in summer - it's just a subsidy to keep old folk at a reasonable temperature for the benefit of their health isn't it? 

What a joke, it is colder in the houses here in winter than the UK!!

I agree.
Why do the majority of people think that Spain is warm or even hot, all year round?

We have a traditional wedge shaped casita as our lounge and it was pretty chilly in the winter, even with a good woodburner.
We fitted the 40mm polypropylene insulation available in most builders merchants. We trimmed it to fit tight between the old wooden vigas and the difference has been dramatic. It seems that all the heat was going straight out of the roof. We also paneled in the mezzanine to stop all the heat going up there.
Warm as toast now - better open the window cos it's 25 in here... 

Thanks, PlanesPete, for bringing to our attention what people in the UK have been doing for years; i.e. dealing with ways to stop your house losing heat, though it does work the same way in summer but in reverse.

Most of here in Catalunya have enjoyed much higher temperatures than the UK and so perhaps the benefits that should be claimed by those people who are living in the UK and suffer from colder temperatures and who are on a low income or past a certain age should be claimed by those people.

Any ex-pats living in warmer climes could perhaps make a claim to the Spanish (or similar country) government for their benefit, or at least for some loft insulation .....