Prior to gas CH, many families in the UK, US and Europe supplemented their coal fires / wood burners with paraffin heaters; they were popular from about 1900 right upto the 1960's. The UK manufactured "Aladdin" was a popular heater during this time. In Japan the majority of homes still use paraffin (kerosene) to heat their homes and domestic water and the technology continues to evolve. Japanese homes, in the main, are not insulated and are built to be drafty (cold winters but hot humid summers) they tend to only heat the room they are in and mostly use kerosene heaters. My understanding is they are also still popular in some US states, although happy to be corrected on this, if not the case now.