The opening directly beneath the jaws was the location of a fuel oil tank. Houses in this area went through multiple heating fuels. For ten thousand years, heat was provided by burning wood. Then it was coal, followed by fuel oil, and today it's mostly natural gas. What comes next?
Modern houses are complex machines with interdependent systems that are expensive to build and maintain. As the era of cheap energy winds down, and as the population dependent on cheap energy contracts, we may eventually insulate, bundle up, and chop firewood. Burning wood is sooty and requires caution, but it's a simple technology that the average human can understand and manage without an army of expensive specialists.
Most people probably won't be able to afford anything else.
But it's worked for thousands of years.
