Comments by "" (@Shontaku) on "Japan with Nao" channel.

Why no central heating? A country stuck in the past, building disposable houses with next to no insulation and horribly cheap windows. Lack of proper airtightness and complete misunderstanding of moisture cycle by most builders. You can often find houses that openly advertise "24 hour ventilation"...essentially holes in the walls to allow free movement of air, meaning all heating and cooling is nullified. Structurally, Japanese houses are fantastic...then absolutely nothing beneficial past that. If the government wasn't so corrupt and stuck in the past, they would mandate serious airtightness and insulation of new buildings which would save so much energy that there would be far less of a need to keep burning garbage to run power stations. Seriously, thinking that running a kerosene heater inside a home is acceptable outside of emergencies? Having the stupid fire truck drive around "dinging" its bell to remind people to open their windows to let in fresh (cold) air? WTF? People here don't look at that and think that there's anything wrong. In the spring, I took my 25 year-old house in Saitama built by Polus(a top-tier builder), pulled off the siding, wrapped and insulated it with Gutex and installed a very basic and janky HVAC system with heat recovery. I already have a solar system and air-source heat pump water tank. This reform totalled about ¥8,000,000 (usd$50,000ish). My power bills went from an average ¥20,000/month to ¥4,000. Nevermind the cost, but the sheer amount of energy wasted over the past 25 years makes me sick. The fact that the building energy standards have not significantly improved in 25 years is criminal. I did have a lot of fun though this summer when I swapped my 25 mat living room aircon with an 8 mat unit. The aircon guy was losing his mind arguing that it wouldn't work since my living room is 18 mats. Invited him to come back and told him I would give him ¥100,000 if it wasn't fully cooling the room and buy another unit. The 8 mat unit tops out at 800w and was only using about 100w when it was 35 degrees outside. THIS is a big reason why the government does nothing about insulating houses...the lobbyists from the massive aircon market OWN the politicians. The aircon guy even agreed and laughed and said that if people had houses like mine that he wouldn't be able to sell more expensive units. My house is nowhere near Passivhaus standards and I can only hope that people here wake up to how much the government is screwing every one of us. Insulate your houses and stop hiding in one room in the summer and winter; it's not the 1800s.
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@Boguardis Nothing to do with temperature, but RH. It's obviously easier at colder temperatures, but with high-humidity places, it can be 40 degrees outside and as soon as the RH is at about 70%, you have mould growing. With the extremes in Japan of winters below zero and summers above 40 with high humidity, the risk of interstitial condensation is very high. Without proper insulation, wrapping and controlled ventilation, their only solution is to allow full time uncontrolled ventilation...carrying out your heated or cooled air.
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Almost every Japanese aircon is built with reversal valves...but most Japanese people don't understand this and think kerosene is cheaper/more efficient. Logic? No thanks.
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I'm in the same boat and am used to EU energy standards. It is infuriating here when a home builder is proud to have walls of 1.0W/m2K...actually bragging about this. I threw Gutex on an old house, wrapped it and calculated it now at about 0.12W/m2K...still not amazing, but better than the 1.5 I started with.
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@BrownRiceBunny1 100%. It's insane here that people don't demand the government modernise and update coding on insulation and airtightness. Although, the government did recently mandate that government offices must stop using faxes and 3.5 inch floppies!!! (not a joke).
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@Boguardis Jesus...this genius again. Dude, you are getting paid 100% of your salary right now and so am I...so we must be making the same amount of money right? FFS, time to go back to school.
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@mediocreman2 I know right??? What's that water running down my window? That's normal don't you know??? Wind rushing uncontrolled through the house all the time? That's our 24 hour ventilation system!
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@brianreynolds3508 Unfortunately no, new homes are not built much better than this. Code requires almost nothing different than it has for the past 25 years. Almost no homes are built with central systems (perhaps 10% at best). You can definitely have a home built with one, but it is extremely rare. If any house has "zonal" heating/cooling, it is essentially announcing that it is poorly insulated/wrapped. If a home is properly insulated and airtightness is at proper levels, then the whole building should have a fairly homogenised temperature.
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This...100%. I got my panel upgraded to 100A 25 years ago and for this I had to be put on TEPCOs account as a "factory" at that time, with new cabling run from the pole. Don't you miss the days of turning on a toaster and someone else turns on the heater...whole house goes dark.
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@johng4093 It's not really about the method of heating that's important. If a home is insulated and airtight, then it shouldn't make a huge difference. Heating with kerosene here in Japan is extremely expensive. 20L is I think around ¥2000(usd$13) last time I checked. With a typical heater in a "typical" living room here you are probably getting 2-3 days heating if you are only using it for a few hours each evening...so maybe ¥20,000/month just for heating one room. Obviously depends on heater/room size/insulation/temp setting...but remembering that that is for ONE room or area. Either way, just such a waste and a danger.
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You should be heating the WHOLE HOUSE in SFHs, rather than individual rooms. In a PROPERLY INSULATED house, that is far more efficient and safe.
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@Boguardis WTF are you on? They are not "just as efficient" in ANY way. "A hybrid car and a semi-truck are just as efficient...it's all petrol".
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@NokeiadkZ That's exactly it. The aircon lobby here has ridiculous power and has killed many attempts to improve insulation. Higher need for aircons to run harder=faster need to replace.
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You have clearly not lived here if you believe your statement.
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@HomeFromFarAway Almost EVERY house already has heat pumps installed...basically all aircons run reverse-cycle to generate heat, with a built-in supplemental heater if absolutely necessary. The issue isn't heating, but insulation and airtightness.
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You aren't getting central HVAC in old houses like that unless your budget is in the ¥10,000,000 range. You can't simply run ducting around an old structure that was never made for it. You can get away with it to a certain degree with houses made in the last 30ish years, but even then, you aren't getting it everywhere. I honestly don't mean this as a dig, but to save you a lot of money. Put everything you can into external insulation, a decent vapour barrier and a certain amount of airtightness. You can't completely wrap an older house since you will end of getting funky mould in places. Also make sure that the external membrane is brought in around the best quality windows that you can afford. Also don't forget to insulate the roofspace and floor. Please also confirm if you haven't already that you don't have a wood foundation......if you do, then say goodbye to your kids' college fund. Insulation, insulation, insulation. No point at all of any kind of central system, when all that energy is going to leak right out.
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@HomeFromFarAway Brand new homes are not much better. Have two homes here, one 25yo and one 2yo, both built by what's generally considered to be the best builder in Japan...really not a huge difference in energy use per m.
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You are correct. These small heaters are extremely wasteful. The problem here in Japan is that the houses are insulated about as much as a bikini, so it doesn't matter how efficient or not a heater is, all that energy simply leaks out of the house anyway. People just crowd around these little heaters in a single room like homeless people...reverse in summer.
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@Boguardis Just.....Jesus.
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@ivancho5854 Jesus...amazing logic...FFS. I seriously hope that this comment was made in jest.
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What are you talking about? You clearly haven't lived here. Also, what kind of logic is that? "I'm hungry"....."You should be on a diet anyway".
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Hey, who doesn't want the joy of a freezing outhouse inside their home in 2024?
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WTF?
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