Cold

Woke up to a freezing cold house. Nothing unusual about this-- few Japanese houses have central heating. Most homes use old-fashioned kerosene or natural gas heaters to heat the main room, supplemented with electric air conditioners and space heaters, heated carpets, even heated toilet seats. Rooms not being currently used stay unheated- I admire the environmental friendliness of this, but I still hate it. Japanese houses are not insulated and usually very draughty, so the unheated rooms are freezing. So no matter how toasty the one room is, you've got to dress warmly for when you venture out to use the bathroom or answer the door.

Another heating method is the kotatsu. This is a low table with an eclectic heater inside. The frame of the table is covered first with a big thick blanket, then with a tabletop. The table itself usually sits on a thick blanket-like rug. You sit on the floor at the table, and cover yourself up to your waist with the top blanket. The kotatsu is toasty warm inside and once seated at one it can be very hard to get out.

We no longer use ours though- as comfortable as it is, it can be a pain in the ass to clean. The blankets are dust magnets and make sweeping the surrounding floor very difficult. And an amazing number of crumbs and other detritus find their way between the blankets- since it's so hard to escape from a nice, warm kotatsu, you tend to stay there all day. Eating meals and snacks and just going about your messy daily routine.

The kotatsu would have been a great invention, if central heating didn't exist. But as far as I'm concerned, it's is a quaint throw-back to times long past and belongs in a museum. Give me a well-heated room any day.

Another antiquated heating device is the kerosene heater. Kerosene is a cheaper way of heating than electricity or gas, but it's a horribly cumbersome way to heat a house- the heater must be filled manually with kerosene. You need to keep a big barrel of kerosene outside the house, which seems a bit dangerous, and when the heater runs out you have to carry the kerosene tank out to the barrel, pump it full of kerosene (with a cheap plastic hand pump, most likely), and bring in back in to put in the heater. A huge pain in the ass, yes, but worse than that- kerosene smells- spill any and your hands will stink. And the fumes give me headaches. And it just seems so primitive. I mean, this is (arguably) the richest and most technologically advanced country in the world, yet nobody has figured out central heating. It doesn't make any sense.

So no kotatsu or kerosene for us. We use a gas heater, shown on the left. The gas heater is hooked up to the gas line behind the stove top. It can only be used when we are awake and at home, and every few hours we need to open a window or run the kitchen fan to change the air (same goes for kerosene). The heater can only be moved as far as the gas line reaches. I'm always tripping over the damn gas line or the heater itself (tripping over all the crap typically found on ther floor of a Japanese house- a rant for another day). But I do try to take care because a leak in the gas line can be deadly, and at least once a week I vacuum off the impressive amount of dust the heater's filter has collected (which can catch fire if you leave it too long).

Guess vacuuming is not enough because last night while Hideaki was working the heater turned off and the Clean Filter light went on. He gave it a good washing (he claims it was filthy, obviously assuming I wasn't cleaning it right) and tried it again but it didn't work. So he suffered for a few cold hours and then came to bed, making sure to wake me up and ask me to check it out when I got up.

So next morning I woke up and went down to the kitchen/dining room/office, which was a crisp nine degrees. Not the coldest ever, but still not very nice. Heater didn't work, so I thought I'd boil a kettle of water for heat (an old-fashioned technique I resort to often). The stove didn't work. So I thought I'd at least warm up my hands while washing last night's dishes (there goes my New Year's Resolution to stop procrastinating with the housework!). No hot water.

My darling husband hadn't thought to check the gas.

So he got woken up (rather rudely, I'm afraid) and called the gas company. Turns out that our gas had automatically been shut off when the Clean Filter light had gone on. To protect us from a potential fire or something. I had no idea that could happen. The gas was on again in a few minutes, and although it was a minor hassle, I'm pretty impressed. That's a cool system.

Still, I'll take central heating any day.

The dishes, by the way, are still sitting in the sink waiting to be washed. It's 3:00 and a toasty 19C. Well, it's only 19C directly in front of the heater, which is where I've been for the past three hours. It's comfy here- the dishes can wait...

Comments

[Jolie]

Hi there! Jolie from MIJ here! I have been setting my heat to 22c, that is around 72-75F right?

Do you think 22c is too warm!

[Amy]

Well, I actually prefer a really warm house- about 21C is perfect for me (no idea about fahrenheit, sorry). Back home my mom and I were engaged in a constant battle with me raising the thermostat and her lowering it...
But here in Japan I don't like to set the heater too high. The heater only heats a small area, and I need to dress warmly so I don't freeze when I venture into the unheated parts of the apartment. So if I'm dressed in layers of warm clothes and sitting infront of a 22C heater I'll be uncomfortable hot.
Sure do miss central heating!