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At least in Japan and most parts of China, houses are poorly insulated and heating is often from aircon, which means if you want to stay warm, you wear thick clothes inside, sit under a heated blanket and what not.

This sucks.

Your nose and hands are still cold. If you want to move from the blanket its cold.

I don't see anything that really addresses this. Yeah, the insulated chair is nice when you sit on it, but what about when you need to get a cup of coffee?



I'm currently living like that in Japan. In fact I'm writing this sitting in a Kotatsu. Last week it once got 6C in the apartment. We use a DeLonghi oven, a small heater and a Kotatsu whenever we need a place to get warm. With the Kotatsu we were able to get the bill from 120$/m down to 80$/m. I have to say, one can get used to it - the constant change in temperature keeps up the blood flow and I feel a lot stronger against the cold compared to when I stayed in Switzerland, which gets a bit colder in winter outside - but always has cozy 21C inside. Only one thing: A Kotatsu is such a trap to get lazy. It's also dubbed 'bad people maker' in Japan - I can totally see why.


Wow, that looks awesome! I'm in Canada, and one of the worst things for me is having cold feet around the house. Happens no matter what I do. Heavy socks, slippers, doesn't matter. A Kotatsu looks like the perfect solution!


Ya, my wife's mom lives in south china and we just visited her over Xmas, coldest 7C I've ever had to deal with.

Japan deals with poor insulation using kotatsu, and things like heated toilet and train seats. Ugh, it still sucks though.


Well, you could always just size up one of those heated blankets, and attach it to the wall. Maybe even combine it with a more efficient fuel source like Natural Gas, and heat water that flows through the system instead of a coil. Sounds much more efficient, especially if you have multiple people in your household. Imagine a system like that...


Coming from Denmark that basically sounds like "normal" heating to me (except we usually only heat through the floor or dedicated radiators)

But I really like your idea about carpeting the walls. Might do that if I end up living here long term!


I was attempting to be srcastic and explain that mounting a radiator on a wall connected to a gas boiler would be an improvement on what we have here. Also, many places in the UK and Ireland have insulation on exterior walls already.


We were thinking about heated floors; still not that great, but the best you can do in a south Chinese apartment without central heating.




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