Even back in the day, every household had a central heater.
In the place where I grew up, everyone burned wood in their oil gas furnaces while the rest had an oil oil furnace.
I get legitimately nostalgic when I remember how much of a tight-knit community the people I was with and I were back then. Everyone knew everybody & all the children played together in the community park, and people nowadays barely suppose who their next-door buddy is, let alone who lives in the town. Our next-door buddy was a legitimately cheerful woman who attended to any boiler maintenance where needed, & with a boiler in every household, she was never out of work. When I & our fiance Norman obtained our first house, a tiny one-entrywayed house, the people I was with and I made sure to get one that had an electric oil furnace instead of oil. Since the people I was with and I were both starting out, the people I was with and I did not have enough money & the people I was with and I did most house maintenance & repairs ourselves. Norman did the oil furnace filter substitutement or cleaning every more than two weeks. Four children later & a much bigger house, I have little to complain about, during the construction of the house, the people I was with and I hired a heating company to install the best quality Heating, Ventilation as well as A/C system that heating technology has to offer. Even with the up-to-date Heating, Ventilation as well as A/C equipment the people I was with and I still have to schedule a oil furnace/heater tune-up with the heating & cooling provider every year to make sure everything is toiling as it should. This also ensures that a problem is detected early before it escalates. Last year when the Heating, Ventilation as well as A/C repairman came for the annual servicing, she discovered that the heating system had a problem that needed a minor repair.