May i ask where you are from? Where i live heated floors are by now very common on new buildings and i even know of one house that has it since about 40 years. I study architecture so i'm just interested in stuff like this. i love heated floors. my parents house is too old for it though ;__;
A friend of mine who studied abroad in Japan hung big heavy blankets over her windows at night to trap the heat in, and she said it worked pretty well. She brought her own cheap space heater from America, and ran it in her room in the morning and before she went to bed, and in the bathroom for about twenty minutes before she went to take a shower.
@@YukataKaytee Yeah! I wonder if Japan has the plastic window coverings that you take a hair dryer too and it shrink wraps around the window to seal it in.
I live in the NW of the US and have come to realize with each year I age, the winter gets less livable. I may never get to travel to Japan, as I want to; but this may have saved my general life. Thank you for that. I live on heating pads, but you can get some nasty heating pad burns if you do that long term.
Ptolemy That actually sounds really nice. Is it dry or humid though? That's what kills you. In the southern states, it gets so hot (probably winter Australia hot), but there is so much humidity that it feels like you're trying to breathe through a wet blanket.
People assume that Australia is hot all the time but many houses here do not have central air/heating/cooling so winter here can be very tough. I have lived in 6 different houses here and none of them have any heating or cooling, not even a wall unit like the one in this video! For most of this winter I wake up and see my breath. We buy small floor heaters but they're not big enough to warm the whole house :(
Another good heating option akin to the hot water bottles but more cozy is a sock filled with rice or corn. I'm from Minnesota/North Dakota and we love them here. You don't need to use a sock alot of people make them by sewing a pouch and filling it with corn or rice. That way you can whatever size you want. The sock shape works well because you can loop it over your shoulders and neck.
i just recently came across your channel here and i would have to say i like it you talk about a lot of things i wonder about with japan and being from LA state (neighbors to texan) ive always wondered and youve answered a lot of my questions so keep up the good work and send some love my way japan is awesome, and so are your vids thank you
Growing up in an old country home in the 60's and 70's. Fireplaces don't heat the house very well, we kinda huddled around them. The beds had a lot of quilts, heavy in fact. We would keep our clothes in bed with us to be put on the next day. We were lucky if the bedroom was 40 degrees or better but it was nice and cozy in the quilts.
I like the idea of draping a blanket around a table with a heater going underneath. Sounds toasty! And a lot cheaper than leaving the heater running all day.
You could make the table you have as a sort-of kotatsu with the heater that you have by putting a thicker tablecloth over the table. One that hangs down about 2/3rds or even further if you choose. I have done this for years over the table I use as a desk and it works really well, the heat gets trapped by the tablecloth just like with a kotatsu. There are two great things about this, because it traps the air you don't need to have the heater so close to your legs, and you may not have to run the heater for as long before you warm up. Before I used the tablecloth I would run my spaceheater for hours, but now I can run it for about an hour or less and go for about two or three hours before I turn it on again. My space heater that has both the regular heating filament guard and then a...not sure what to call it, a distance box? It keeps items or pets about a 18" away from the front and sides, so it keeps the tablecloth from accidentally getting too close and being a fire hazard. Mine doesn't have a remote so when I turn it on I always, always check that the tablecloth isn't caught on anything close to the heater, and that nothing like a loose sock or whatever might get to close even with the distance box . My dog loved it, she would stay under the table for hours, sleeping with her head on my foot. :)
My husband and I just use two space heaters and two electric blankets to heat our house in the winter, and we live in Massachusetts, so it gets pretty fricken cold here, too. We're actually supposed to get over two feet of snow on Monday/Tuesday. Our electric bill still stays under $100, and we don't have an actual heat bill at all, so we much prefer it this way... even if we have to bundle up sometimes. Stay warm, Grace! :)
Wow! You're so lucky! Before I moved to Tokyo, I lived in Philadelphia and my electric bill was always around $200 in the winter. It got way too cold in Philly!
TOFUsenshi We also live on the second floor of a 3-family home, and the other two floors use gas heat, so we get some of their warmth just by where we are. haha. It's 28 degrees here at the moment, but we're getting a low of 5 on Wednesday.
dxgirly Wow and I thought it was cold here in sweden and its only 37.4F or 3c. Though our apartments are really good isolated so its never cold inside.
So I'm planning on getting my Bachelor of Arts degree and then I'm looking at dragging my hubby to Japan for a year or two. I'm saving a bunch of your videos to my Japan list, that way I've got lots of source material! :D
Hi Grace, try this trick to get heat in the back room or any room that's cold. When you use you wall heater, put a fan on the floor in the doorway of the room you want heated and aim the fan so it's blowing out of the room and the warmer air will flow into it. I do this at my parents house that a bit older and doesn't have central heat. The fan will eventually spread the warm air everywhere. Just make sure the heat is on. Oh this also works for cooling too just turn the fan so it aims into the room.
Half of this I know about this life cuz when we first moved into our old house, we were renovating the whole place top to bottom while we lived in it at the same time. And this was in America! So we discovered the space heater thing, hot water bottle and other little quirks too. So what your saying is all very true and helpful.
I often use my oven to heat my house. turn it to 350, let it heat up, then crack it. goes from 40 - 65 degrees in like 20 minutes. doesnt impact my electric bill too much, maybe $5-$10/month
+Diasent Domorincon when I was a kid my mom did the same thing because the heater broke down in the middle of November in Canada, and we had no imeadiate money to fix it, it works well
Kerosene heater is the best to heat up the house, winter outside and summer inside. I used to use an electric blanket while watching tv at home during the winter and spent a couple of cents a day on heating.
I love how you explain what a hot water bottle is 😄 in NZ our houses aren't central heated either so it's pretty cold even if your house is insulated well. Grew up with hotties to keep me warm in bed. Now we have an electric blanket 😍
100 bucks a month is a lot. I heat my house with wood for about 30bucks a month. and the 30 bucks is for running the box fan to move the warm air around.
I went from Idaho where it get seriously cold, down to central Argentina where it only gets sort of cold. Argentina was so much worse! It's a serious challenge when the house isn't insulated or heated. It took me a long time to figure out how to adapt.
In Holland (and probably other countries too) you can buy a space heater that uses oil as a medium. It's more effecient and safer than a radiation heater (like the one your using). It mimics the working of a central heating device. The way it works is that there is a steel radiator filled with oil which is heated by a small electric heater. The whole radiator gets very warm (not really hot) and so the amount of warm air radiating from it is more/higher(?). And because there is no red hot glowing spiral exposed no (severe) burns and way less chance of fire. I use one to heat the music studio in my shed and I just leave it on day and night, it has a thermostat and everything.
I have one of those, I put it in my back house and it warms the whole place up, my tenants love it, although it takes much longer to warm up, but is definitely more consistent, gives a more even heat all over.
We have one of those and I love it! We roll it around to wherever it's needed most (usually the bathroom or my daughter's room). I was nervous about having any kind of heater in my daughter's room given all of the fires that space heaters start, but the radiator works beautifully and can't even burn her. And yeah, lol, the cats love it!
We have "yutanpo" in most european countries. We use it all the time. There is even some that are small enough to fit in your hands. But those body heat packs look amazing!
I used a lot of sherpa blankets when I lived in Alaska. Sometimes I had to sleep in the truck (off, obviously, because I was too broke to waste gas for the heater), and when it's -50F or -60F outside, those things were an absolute lifesaver. Nothing quite like watching your breath freeze on the window and still having to poke your feet out of the blanket every ten minutes because it's so warm that you're overheating.
Many years ago I spent 2 weeks in an English hostel, and it too was freakishly cold, at least inside. It didn't get below 29f outside, but it was horribly cold inside. So, I can imagine what your Japanese experience is like.
I have winter now, so I'm wearing ski pants, and a possum/marino top. Sometimes I hop into a sleeping bag when at the computer, and I use hot water bottles, a gas flued fire, or an oil less column heater. Doing some work in the garden also warms me up.
I'm Canadian and live in the prairie. Three years ago we had a winter where we had -40c and colder for two months straight. So cold that when you breath it's like breathing glass. Last year was freakishly warm where we only had a week of minus -40 all told. So a good tip for you to stay warm. Wool socks, wear something around your neck all the time even a light scarf indoors. Also the New Zealand brand Icebreaker.
These are some great tips, even for those not in Japan! I've heard of the clothing heating packs and space heaters before of course! And I got better at keeping warm and layering when I moved to the south and was riding my bike to work in the winter, man I could have used those heating packs... So many times. I got really good at wearing layers while not looking like I was wearing layers.
I grew up in a frame cabin in north Texas and we had several Gas space heaters, the Main Difference is also that Japanese Buildings rarely have insulation in the walls or ceilings.
Kotatsu hack for your office table. 1) Measure out the sides of your table 2) Buy enough Velcro to go around your table 3) Glue Velrco to the table 4) Get blankets and adjust their size and shape to go with your office table (leave as small hole for your chair as possible) 5) Attach opposite part of your Velrco to your blankets (saw, glue,...) 6) Velcro assemble! 7) Space heater initiate! (no need to put it so close to your legs anymore) We no have no Japanese winters here but -20+ Celsius is common and it works for me. Also, is it difficult to get a wood stove i Japan? Sorry that i still live in the stereotypical image of paper wall houses...
Good idea! I am so going to do that this winter to my own table. I think even without the heater, it'd be warmer, too. Especially if you sit on another piece of fabric and let it hang down behind your calves to block the hole your chair and legs would make.
Kropikovo, that sounds almost identical to what I do! ( ^ω^ ) I got a little crafty last year and made a new blanket for the table and just cut slits in the blanket for the chairs. So when I wasn't sitting there the blanket would still hang over the chairs and keep the heat in, and when you sat down you could pull part of the warm blanket up on your lap, it was awesome! Also I live up north end of Saskatchewan, Canada so our winters regularly get as cold as -50c usually around -30 during the day so this is sooo nice to have!
One thing you could try - we used to do this when I was growing up in Oregon and we were poor -- if you can find it in Japan, get thick sheets of plastic material (still somewhat see-through - I think my parents got them at a hardware store) and staple them around your windows. This helps keep the cold air from seeping through the single-pane glass.
I can remember when I was a child waking up in Sussex and the bed actually having ice on the cover that crackled when I got out... my breath had condensed and frozen in the covers!
I find Japan to be very warm in winter but I have now decided to use my heater as I stay home. Investing in thick curtains also help retaining the heat I would add :)
A Patton PUH680-U space heater will keep a small apartment at 760 sqft at room temperature when the outside temp is above freezing. Freezing and below use 2 and place them at opposite sides of your place. I lived in a 1 bedroom apartment for years that was only 760sqft and 2 of those heaters kept my entire apartment toasty warm during the winter.
1:12 fascinating how a little packet of heat can sustain one for the day... it's like in little house on the prairie where the pioneers put heated bricks in blankets at the foot of the sled when they went to the next town over...
ah watching this made me miss winter so much. i lived in egypt for about 10 years and the winters there are pretty freakin cold. i'm currently in the philippines and it's hella hot the whole year round except when we get typhoons, that's when the weather gets sort of chilly. i do prefer winter over the summer tbh, and i miss the feeling of the cold haha. but during the summer here in the country, it's so hot to the point where we have to have the airconditioning turned on 24/7, which just increases our electricity bill.
this video was really helpful! thank you for posting this! i will definitely go buy the heating packs, try out the heat tech clothing, and look for a layering down jacket!!
We also have hot bottles and the thing that goes in the microwave in germany. Here it´s called "Wärmflasche" (warming bottle) and "Körnerkissen" (grains pillow). The second one you can craft yourself. Just sew a flat pillow out of cotton and pour it with 2/3 of rice or dried cherry cores. Now sew the opening shut so that your "pillow" is closed an heat it 600W for around 2-3min. You can use it over and over again. It helds up pretty well but if it gets wet you have to dry it fast or it will get mold. Also you can sew any shape you want. I saw pigs, owls, flowers etc.
NZ has pretty badly insulated housing. We tend to use oil heaters (one for each room) they plug into a wall socket and are safe to use through the night. (Also I have some medical background and it's not good practice to sleep in a room where the air is less than 18c as it affects the laminar flow of air into your lungs. No matter how warm you keep your body with blankets etc; if the air breathed in is cold; you are vulnerable to infection.
I just checked out the average temperatures in Japan and was shocked to see it's really similar to the UK! For some reason I always imagined Japan to have tropical weather.
uv thermal window tints/sheets. they stick to the window, with a very mild tint. what is does is stop or lessen temperate transition. Your heater is on, the heat will stay in, and the cold out. Ac on, cold stays in and hot out. I love them.
It's unfortunate that the heater is also the cooler, as heat rises and cold falls, the hot air will mostly be moving along the ceiling. We have it the same way out in the Sonoran Desert, luckily it's not cold enough to snow.
I know water heat bottles from when I was growing up in Germany. My mom used to put them on my stomach when I had a stomach ache, in addition to giving me fennel and chamomile tea.
I really love cold and winter especially when it's snowing. There is a really big mountain here in Bursa, Turkey and I really enjoy going to ski resorts and restaurant places on the mountain in winters. We actually have most of the things you mentioned in Turkey too, we only don't have Kotatsu (I've seen heating packs here but they are not very common.). There is heating in most houses though but some are still using heating stoves especially in little towns, villages and poor neighbourhoods. I don't cold winters are much of a problem for me but it's a real pain in the butt to survive in hot summers.
A lot of those tips are similar to what my grandma used to do when she was a kid in the great depression days. Bed warmers, layers of clothing, water bottles. The best to you guys over there. ..um.. it's like 50 degrees here in Oregon... what the heck? (stay warm!)
Very interesting. I've known about kotatsu for a long time but was not aware of some of the smaller things. This reminded me of a thing we used to have many years ago that was a cloth bag that was full of dried corn kernels,like popcorn but they were coated so you stick in in the microwave and they get hot but won't pop. So it's like a hot bean bag that stayed hot for hours. This was actually meant for sore muscles but you could use for any time you wanted to be warm.
In north Texas at least, the winters get fairly intense, especially when you factor in wind chill. Since the wind can get like 40mph and up, it feels like the temperature drops like ten degrees. And then we have our pipes freezing and roads icing over. We used a lot of space heaters, especially in the town I'm from since all the houses are super old and don't have central heating
The best tip I can give is using one (or more) layers of wool under your clothes. I don't know how common it is with Wool clothing in Japan, but in Norway where temperatures can reach below -30 degrees celsius (-22 degrees fahrenheit), we use lots of thin layers of wool to keep us warm. It's really really effective! I know that at least Kari Traa ships to Japan, and that is a great brand with high quality clothes that lasts for years (so even if it's expensive, you save on it in the long run).
I have a space heater because we had one week of temps of about 34 and windchill in the 20s. And water freezes at 32 so I consider that cold. But today I went for a ride on the Harley because the weather was that beautiful and begged for a bike ride.
I have to second what Exil says under Alexander's comment. Insulate your home. It'll help in the winter AND summer. Point a fan set to the low setting and point it at the ceiling too to circulate down the hot air that gets caught up there, or set a ceiling fan to its winter setting. When using the heat packs, put them on top of blood vessel clusters in your body. The insides of your wrists, small of your back, back of your neck, and back of your knees. The blood will pick up that heat and warm your extremities more effectively. Also, you're from Texas, make some of our chilli!
oh you guys have tatami flooring, my friend made a japanese design room in her house and i love the feeling of tatami under my feets! also its more comfy than hard wood floors if you lay down on them..
Haha! I'm from Australia and my friends don't think I have a concept of Winter either. My partner and I moved into a new house that is up on bricks and entirely tiled and we had condensation breath too! Those personal heaters are a Godsend.
my 4SLDK holiday home in Manazuru was built in 2008 and it has central heating (underfloor heating), I only go to Japan for summer holidays so I've never used it during the winter.
in my old house we had a heater that was a central one but it didnt really work, so usually we just left the oven cracked and turned it up a bit and got a space heater for each individual room
Why dont they add insulation when building their houses? i dont get that. I lived in Japan for one year and no one understood the word "insulation". :D Our house here in germany is so perfectly insulated that I rarely have to use the central heating in winter to sustain 21°C. In Japan in the other hand my olive oil was frozen one day in the kitchen (not in the fridge :D)
It's definitely the 2 things I miss about American houses when I go to Japan, central AC/heating and insulation/double pane windows... It definitely makes it hard to want to take a shower when the bathroom's all tile and the tub's stainless steel. We've got some electric and kerosene heaters to warm up the bathroom, hallways, and entry, but I usually turn that on 15-20 minutes before I take my shower.
In Germany you have winter.. The average winter temperture in the Coldest place in Japan is like -11. In Tokyo it doesn't get below 5 very often not -5.. 5C.. the RECORD low in Tokyo is -9C That is put on a sweater weather, not "surviving winter in Japan" weather. If she has Nordic friends that think it is cold in Tokyo.. ... those are made Nordic people. Then again Most Nordic Countries are actually really mild in the Winter... Ask someone from Calgary or nearly anywhere in Canada (Minus Southern Ontario and Southern BC) if Japan is cold.
indeed, the german winters are much colder BUT: when I was in japan it was almost impossible to live inside. It was horrible. Even if the minimal temperature was +10°C. The japanese houses usually dont have any insulation. It really means NOTHING XD. I could even feel the cold win, when my windows were closed.
Takes lot of time to get used to Winter anywhere. I been in Minnesota my whole life and one thing I learn is to get ready for Winter before it hits. So the best way to get ready for next Winter is buy Winter stuff after Winter is over and most Winter stuff is on sale at the begin Sring then get some good deals before next Winter.
Another tip for heating up a little; if you have and use an oven, when done with it and it's cooling down. slip an oven-mitten in the oven-spring so the rest-heat is spreading through out the kitchen. (sorry if something is unclear.my english are usually pretty good but I just couldn't find the words for everything... *Swede*)
A good space heater should be plenty to keep at least 1 room really warm. I have an oil radiater style heater that is very efficient, it distrubutes heat evenly and its safe enough to leave on overnight.
This is so unbelievable as Japan is vulcanic and has geothermic energy for free - just look how Iceland is doing it, they do not even need oil! I did not know that such a developped country like Japan has freezing temperatures and no isolation in their buildings.
I used to live in Canada for a few years until a couple years ago, my wife and I spent like $1600 on down jackets our first winter... well... we didn't "need" to spend $900 on the Canada Goose "Expedition" parka... but it was the only one we could find at first... it's the kind of parka they wear on Antarctica... Our old apartment would be somewhat cold sometimes, as the old heaters were some things near the floor in each room by the window... we found that taping the seems and every imaginably crack we could find... like... the wind seems, the... door seems.... it helped keep our apartment warmer.
I've heard this before from a German guy who said he's never had a winter in Germany where he was colder than his winter in Japan...and Germany gets colder. Apparently, not only do the Japanese not believe in central heating, but they also don't believe in insulating their houses. They like to say "One should experience the seasons", but personally I think that's just a poor excuse for not being on part with modern, first world climate control. I had a friend from the Himalayas who tell me about the lack of central heating there. When I asked why his family didn't have it (they were rich) he said "You don't understand....we're backwards". lol.
SepherStar I can confirm this, in Europe I've never experienced feeling cold in winter, inside the house. Like we don't waste energy so we still wear sweaters inside the house but its never uncomfortable
We have one of those space heaters as well xD because our central heating has the bad Habit of stopping to function when it gets really cold. like last winter it had about -20°C (outside and our heater stopped working) and I hadn't even realized it because when I start getting cold I simply lay down under more and more blankets... When my mom came home and realized it had only about 14°C In our house we had to start our stove and stuff on until we got our heater on again :D Since then we also have one of those small ones (for emergencies ;D )
I remember going to my grandmother's old house, (we moved) and sleeping under the kotatsu while eating mandrin oranges(because it's a tradition). It it amazing. I tend to find uniqlo's heat tech leggings not working out with me. Although I live in california, when it get's cold it get's super cold
I looked it up, it's about -10'C in December as a low, didn't find wind chill, but I think that would give it extra kick. I come from Northern Ontario, Canada, so it doesn't seem so bad during the cold months to me. We use a Gas heater down stairs, and a electric heater up stairs, not super bad, power is still REALLY expensive though. Just for information though, our lows during December are about -26"C on average, in January to February you can see a low of -50'C with windchill.
Thank you for this vid! I'm from Indonesia which is a tropical country which means i never experienced winter in my life. currently i am studying abroad in japan and i don't know how to survive the winter as i heard it is really cold bc of the bad insulation.
My university lodging has not be heated for 2 weeks now, so after 1 week freezing when I would come back (while I would wear skirt without any stocking outside with no problem), I took my family's space heater and now it's such a pleasure walking in my tiny room without having the urge to get back immediately into my bed! My mate doesn't have a heater, and she won't use mine..I feel so bad for her ><
Well, I do have heaters in my home, but they never work, so during the first winter in our apartment, the boyfriend and I ended up freezing our butts off at 59 degrees…So the number one thing we use to keep our living room (were we spend most of our day) warm is candles. We have around 6 small ones and 3 large ones burning throughout the day with a closed door, which heats up the room super nicely. when we shift to the bedroom at night we usually just put the blow dryer under the blankets for 10 minutes lol. bathroom, kitchen and hallway just stay cold, because those are the rooms we spend the least time in and we can't be bothered heating them up for half an our of usage (like cooking or showering).
Oklahoma Winters are some of the coldest according to some of my friends. Layers of ice then layers of snow then covered in more layers of ice. So the best tricks I use is space heaters are the best for heating only the rooms you need. Keep a small space heater going in the bathroom (although not at full power, but enough to make it bearable, which also keeps the pipes from freezing). As for blankets, Fleece blankets (the THICK fleece, not the micro-fleece junk) traps heat and keeps you warm ALL NIGHT. Layers of thin clothing is better than thick layers any day. And there are some people I know of that uses aluminum foil on their windows to either trap heat during the winter or keep a room cool during the summer.
I was a Texan that went to live in Rhode Island. It was hard to adjust to the cold until I found an electric mattress pad. It is amazing! About 15 mins before you go to bed you turn it on, and when you get into bed it is nice and toasty. It keeps the whole bed warm, and there is less chance of a cover theft stealing the electric blanket and waking up cold.
When I visited Japan, every room in the house was plumbed for natural gas and a portable heater was installed (one was under a table). Never heated a room when no one was in it. Other Japanese that I knew used portable kerosene heaters. At night we used a lot of blnkets and curled up with each other.
Based on USDA growth zones, I'd estimate a fairly handsome portion of Japan freezes/snows at some point in Winter. There are very old ways Europeans used to insulate their homes back in the day that you may find useful since Fall is in the air. 1. Tapestries! In addition to their decorative value, tapestries and rugs were often used to help insulate the lords and ladies from the cold outside. If you hang an old comforter over a window or sliding door as a curtain/tapestry, you will feel the difference! Tapestries/rugs/comforters/quilts hung decoratively over walls that have no insulation can act not only as insulation, but they can help with sound reduction as well! :) 2. Small, fuzzy animals. The lap dog was introduced as a way for the rulers of the land to stay warm, and gives them a cadre of poison-tasters others might not expect before a "favorite" pooch keeled over because something not healthy for their human was fed to the doggy first. Cats are more dual-purpose so they were more often the bed-warmer/lap-warmer of poor, old ladies who had plenty of mice, rats, and other vermin for the cats to eat skittering about. 3. Wool. Not only would Europeans use wool to insulate themselves (granny sweaters are the warmest!) but they would stuff wool, straw, wood shavings, and anything else they could think of in their walls trying to keep warm in Winter. 4. Straw. Straw clothing is not entirely an Asian thing, and bales of straw not yet fed to or used as bedding for the animals was often placed in good spots to help insulate a home. Canadians and others in northern portions of the US still often follow this practice to help save on heating costs in Winter. We used to place straw bales around the outside of our home in Michigan and Mom would use them for garden mulch after the snow melted for good in the Spring, for example. 5. Mud. Surprisingly, mud and dirt are relatively good insulators if applied in large-enough quantities. I cite green roofs (the ones with dirt and growing things in them) as a good example in modern construction. You may find applying mud to the outside of your home may be dangerous for your health depending upon your neighbors and their access to farming tools and torches... ;) A more modern, lightweight, flexible option for insulation would be to find a supplier for spray-foam insulation for relatively cheap. There are also heat-reflecting options with insulating foam in the middle that can be stapled in-place. If I were renting a place in Japan, I would likely get cheap comforters or sew my own "quilts" with nice, fluffy batting in the middle, apply a layer of cheap emergency blanket in the middle or on one side, and hang it up as an art piece of some sort along my walls and over my windows. I'm sure there are lots of very attractive, affordable prints, or you could use the appliqué method, to make some amazing "tapestries" that you can later wash, line dry, fold-up, pile into a cedar-scented box (I like using cheap cedar balls or disks), and forget about until next Fall. You might even decide to craft one for your bed to help reflect your collective body-heat back to yourselves and as a general "throw" blanket around the house. I suppose if some spray adhesive was used to secure the cheap emergency blanket to the batting in the middle so it wouldn't crackle, that might help with the noise. It all depends upon how crafty you want to be. ;) I forgot! We also use fans in our home not only to circulate cool air in Summer, but warm air in Winter! If we're using a space heater, my household typically uses fans to help blow around the warm air. Don't know if all of this will help, but I hope so! ;)
I live in a temperate climate but my building isn't insulated (just because it's old, not to feel the seasons). We had an unusually cold winter here once (high 30's at night), and before I got the wall heater working, it was the same temperature inside. I actually wanted to stay at work because the thought of going home was so miserable.
I live in a tropical humid country so I can't possibly imagine the cold you guys go through in japanese winters. I might be moving to JP soon and this kinda makes me worry - thanks for the tips. Off topic:you look sooo pretty with this hairstyle!
Normally for my room I just use a space heater. It does the job of keeping me nice and warm during the winter months. Plus snuggling with heavy blankets. ^_^
I've been living in Germany the past three winters. The first one was bad, also because we lived at a ground floor apartment facing the backyard, so it was really humid and we had the central heating on everyday between september-march. The last two we've been in a flat on the third floor and it is so warm. The walls are so thick it is nice warm in winter and cool in summer. Except those really cold or hot days. But I don't know if it is warm at my flat because my neighbours have the heating going on all day, because is not that cold outside (2.5ºC right now), because I am getting use to it, or what, but we've barely used the central heating this winter. One thing for sure: this building was erected in 1927 I think and it is better than my 10 years old parent's home in Spain.
I giggled at "hot water heater". I still think it's weird that kettles aren't really a thing in America (and probably other places). My tip for cold weather is to buy a sleeping bag. They're soooo warm and not too expensive. My mum got me one for christmas a few years ago, and I love it. If it's really cold I'll spend the whole day in it :P
If you get a humidifier, it will help you feel less cold for the temperature. If it's a hot-water humidifier, it'll warm it up a bit, but even if it doesn't, it'll still be more comfortable.
At our house which I think we might have the same sort of winters as Japan here in Michigan I'm not sure though, geographically the positioning is about the same. But, we have a central air system but we burn wood to heat the house and the water during the winter time and our bill is pretty low and we always have hot water.
I live up north in a mobile home with little insulation and poor heating so I know this pain but I've learned the tricks of wearing 2-3 bathrobes and pajama pants and wearing pajama pants under my denims
I've been to Japan during the winter season at least twice, but I can't remember much how it was like. Although I'm definitely certain most people will need thermal underwear indoors or outdoors during the coldest months. (I used to get my thermal wear from Uniqlo in Japan, but now I can just buy them here in the US so it is much easier preparing for trips.)
I have friends who lived in a fairly new apartment building and it had heated floors. It was so nice in winter even with no other heating on.
May i ask where you are from? Where i live heated floors are by now very common on new buildings and i even know of one house that has it since about 40 years. I study architecture so i'm just interested in stuff like this. i love heated floors. my parents house is too old for it though ;__;
I live in Chiba. Anything under like three years is basically unheard of of having any useful heating.
Jakub Makalowski not just new but most apartments have floor heating in Japan and South Korea
A friend of mine who studied abroad in Japan hung big heavy blankets over her windows at night to trap the heat in, and she said it worked pretty well. She brought her own cheap space heater from America, and ran it in her room in the morning and before she went to bed, and in the bathroom for about twenty minutes before she went to take a shower.
Bubble wrap works too and still gets light through during the day!
@@YukataKaytee Yeah! I wonder if Japan has the plastic window coverings that you take a hair dryer too and it shrink wraps around the window to seal it in.
I'll be honest, as a Michigander, and someone who loves the cold, everything you talked about sounds absolutely ideal.
+MasterCheifn343 Same here!
+MasterCheifn343 I'm from NYC and used to live in MA and NH and its sounds ideal too.
I live in the NW of the US and have come to realize with each year I age, the winter gets less livable. I may never get to travel to Japan, as I want to; but this may have saved my general life. Thank you for that.
I live on heating pads, but you can get some nasty heating pad burns if you do that long term.
+Dog Flamingo Visit Australia where Winter is Summer and Summer is Hell.
Ptolemy That actually sounds really nice. Is it dry or humid though? That's what kills you. In the southern states, it gets so hot (probably winter Australia hot), but there is so much humidity that it feels like you're trying to breathe through a wet blanket.
People assume that Australia is hot all the time but many houses here do not have central air/heating/cooling so winter here can be very tough. I have lived in 6 different houses here and none of them have any heating or cooling, not even a wall unit like the one in this video! For most of this winter I wake up and see my breath. We buy small floor heaters but they're not big enough to warm the whole house :(
Another good heating option akin to the hot water bottles but more cozy is a sock filled with rice or corn. I'm from Minnesota/North Dakota and we love them here. You don't need to use a sock alot of people make them by sewing a pouch and filling it with corn or rice. That way you can whatever size you want. The sock shape works well because you can loop it over your shoulders and neck.
i just recently came across your channel here and i would have to say i like it you talk about a lot of things i wonder about with japan and being from LA state (neighbors to texan) ive always wondered and youve answered a lot of my questions so keep up the good work and send some love my way japan is awesome, and so are your vids thank you
Growing up in an old country home in the 60's and 70's. Fireplaces don't heat the house very well, we kinda huddled around them. The beds had a lot of quilts, heavy in fact. We would keep our clothes in bed with us to be put on the next day. We were lucky if the bedroom was 40 degrees or better but it was nice and cozy in the quilts.
My boyfriend is Japanese and he introduced me to my favorite winter survival item a haramaki (Japanese belly warmer) great for at night.
starwatcher67 Ah! I forgot to include haramaki! Shoot. I love those too~
Thanks. My family and I will be in Japan this December. Your tips helped preparing for that trip.
Thanks, coming from Australia I feel I'm gonna really need to put some of these tips to use for when I go to Japan in February! DX
I like the idea of draping a blanket around a table with a heater going underneath. Sounds toasty! And a lot cheaper than leaving the heater running all day.
The cause of the problem is lack of insulation. We woke up to -3C inside the house last week. Japanese houses are very cold.
As a winter surviving Canadian this is adorable! Lol teasing. I love your videos!
You could make the table you have as a sort-of kotatsu with the heater that you have by putting a thicker tablecloth over the table. One that hangs down about 2/3rds or even further if you choose. I have done this for years over the table I use as a desk and it works really well, the heat gets trapped by the tablecloth just like with a kotatsu. There are two great things about this, because it traps the air you don't need to have the heater so close to your legs, and you may not have to run the heater for as long before you warm up. Before I used the tablecloth I would run my spaceheater for hours, but now I can run it for about an hour or less and go for about two or three hours before I turn it on again.
My space heater that has both the regular heating filament guard and then a...not sure what to call it, a distance box? It keeps items or pets about a 18" away from the front and sides, so it keeps the tablecloth from accidentally getting too close and being a fire hazard. Mine doesn't have a remote so when I turn it on I always, always check that the tablecloth isn't caught on anything close to the heater, and that nothing like a loose sock or whatever might get to close even with the distance box . My dog loved it, she would stay under the table for hours, sleeping with her head on my foot. :)
My husband and I just use two space heaters and two electric blankets to heat our house in the winter, and we live in Massachusetts, so it gets pretty fricken cold here, too. We're actually supposed to get over two feet of snow on Monday/Tuesday. Our electric bill still stays under $100, and we don't have an actual heat bill at all, so we much prefer it this way... even if we have to bundle up sometimes. Stay warm, Grace! :)
Wow! You're so lucky! Before I moved to Tokyo, I lived in Philadelphia and my electric bill was always around $200 in the winter. It got way too cold in Philly!
TOFUsenshi We also live on the second floor of a 3-family home, and the other two floors use gas heat, so we get some of their warmth just by where we are. haha. It's 28 degrees here at the moment, but we're getting a low of 5 on Wednesday.
dxgirly Wow and I thought it was cold here in sweden and its only 37.4F or 3c. Though our apartments are really good isolated so its never cold inside.
TOFUsenshi I live in Philly! It is way too cold here. I was so happy when I lived in Florida for school.
Well, at least the worst snow storm in history turned out to be a dud.... like usual! ;)
So I'm planning on getting my Bachelor of Arts degree and then I'm looking at dragging my hubby to Japan for a year or two. I'm saving a bunch of your videos to my Japan list, that way I've got lots of source material! :D
+Blazewing Firebird Sounds like a good idea! haha
Hi Grace, try this trick to get heat in the back room or any room that's cold. When you use you wall heater, put a fan on the floor in the doorway of the room you want heated and aim the fan so it's blowing out of the room and the warmer air will flow into it. I do this at my parents house that a bit older and doesn't have central heat. The fan will eventually spread the warm air everywhere. Just make sure the heat is on. Oh this also works for cooling too just turn the fan so it aims into the room.
Half of this I know about this life cuz when we first moved into our old house, we were renovating the whole place top to bottom while we lived in it at the same time. And this was in America! So we discovered the space heater thing, hot water bottle and other little quirks too. So what your saying is all very true and helpful.
I often use my oven to heat my house. turn it to 350, let it heat up, then crack it. goes from 40 - 65 degrees in like 20 minutes. doesnt impact my electric bill too much, maybe $5-$10/month
Diasent Domorincon Smart idea! (Ryosuke)
+Diasent Domorincon I rly hope ur not talking bout celsius xD
The Real Meow nah Fahrenheit
Good xD
+Diasent Domorincon when I was a kid my mom did the same thing because the heater broke down in the middle of November in Canada, and we had no imeadiate money to fix it, it works well
Kerosene heater is the best to heat up the house, winter outside and summer inside. I used to use an electric blanket while watching tv at home during the winter and spent a couple of cents a day on heating.
I love how you explain what a hot water bottle is 😄 in NZ our houses aren't central heated either so it's pretty cold even if your house is insulated well. Grew up with hotties to keep me warm in bed. Now we have an electric blanket 😍
100 bucks a month is a lot. I heat my house with wood for about 30bucks a month. and the 30 bucks is for running the box fan to move the warm air around.
You have such a wonderful channel. :)
I went from Idaho where it get seriously cold, down to central Argentina where it only gets sort of cold. Argentina was so much worse! It's a serious challenge when the house isn't insulated or heated. It took me a long time to figure out how to adapt.
In Holland (and probably other countries too) you can buy a space heater that uses oil as a medium. It's more effecient and safer than a radiation heater (like the one your using). It mimics the working of a central heating device. The way it works is that there is a steel radiator filled with oil which is heated by a small electric heater. The whole radiator gets very warm (not really hot) and so the amount of warm air radiating from it is more/higher(?). And because there is no red hot glowing spiral exposed no (severe) burns and way less chance of fire. I use one to heat the music studio in my shed and I just leave it on day and night, it has a thermostat and everything.
And if you have cats they like to curl up right art the base and sleep.
I have one of those, I put it in my back house and it warms the whole place up, my tenants love it, although it takes much longer to warm up, but is definitely more consistent, gives a more even heat all over.
We have one of those and I love it! We roll it around to wherever it's needed most (usually the bathroom or my daughter's room). I was nervous about having any kind of heater in my daughter's room given all of the fires that space heaters start, but the radiator works beautifully and can't even burn her. And yeah, lol, the cats love it!
We have "yutanpo" in most european countries. We use it all the time. There is even some that are small enough to fit in your hands. But those body heat packs look amazing!
I used a lot of sherpa blankets when I lived in Alaska. Sometimes I had to sleep in the truck (off, obviously, because I was too broke to waste gas for the heater), and when it's -50F or -60F outside, those things were an absolute lifesaver. Nothing quite like watching your breath freeze on the window and still having to poke your feet out of the blanket every ten minutes because it's so warm that you're overheating.
There's also nothing quite like having to scrape ice off the INside of your windshield, but that's a given.
Many years ago I spent 2 weeks in an English hostel, and it too was freakishly cold, at least inside. It didn't get below 29f outside, but it was horribly cold inside. So, I can imagine what your Japanese experience is like.
I have winter now, so I'm wearing ski pants, and a possum/marino top.
Sometimes I hop into a sleeping bag when at the computer, and I use hot water bottles, a gas flued fire, or an oil less column heater.
Doing some work in the garden also warms me up.
I'm Canadian and live in the prairie. Three years ago we had a winter where we had -40c and colder for two months straight. So cold that when you breath it's like breathing glass. Last year was freakishly warm where we only had a week of minus -40 all told. So a good tip for you to stay warm. Wool socks, wear something around your neck all the time even a light scarf indoors. Also the New Zealand brand Icebreaker.
Facebook post from a friend in Yakutia: "Only -40 today; it's a good thing it hasn't turned cold yet."
These are some great tips, even for those not in Japan! I've heard of the clothing heating packs and space heaters before of course! And I got better at keeping warm and layering when I moved to the south and was riding my bike to work in the winter, man I could have used those heating packs... So many times. I got really good at wearing layers while not looking like I was wearing layers.
I grew up in a frame cabin in north Texas and we had several Gas space heaters, the Main Difference is also that Japanese Buildings rarely have insulation in the walls or ceilings.
Kotatsu hack for your office table.
1) Measure out the sides of your table
2) Buy enough Velcro to go around your table
3) Glue Velrco to the table
4) Get blankets and adjust their size and shape to go with your office table (leave as small hole for your chair as possible)
5) Attach opposite part of your Velrco to your blankets (saw, glue,...)
6) Velcro assemble!
7) Space heater initiate! (no need to put it so close to your legs anymore)
We no have no Japanese winters here but -20+ Celsius is common and it works for me.
Also, is it difficult to get a wood stove i Japan? Sorry that i still live in the stereotypical image of paper wall houses...
Good idea! I am so going to do that this winter to my own table.
I think even without the heater, it'd be warmer, too. Especially if you sit on another piece of fabric and let it hang down behind your calves to block the hole your chair and legs would make.
Kropikovo, that sounds almost identical to what I do! ( ^ω^ ) I got a little crafty last year and made a new blanket for the table and just cut slits in the blanket for the chairs. So when I wasn't sitting there the blanket would still hang over the chairs and keep the heat in, and when you sat down you could pull part of the warm blanket up on your lap, it was awesome!
Also I live up north end of Saskatchewan, Canada so our winters regularly get as cold as -50c usually around -30 during the day so this is sooo nice to have!
I'm going to have to get some of these things for my move to the UK!
One thing you could try - we used to do this when I was growing up in Oregon and we were poor -- if you can find it in Japan, get thick sheets of plastic material (still somewhat see-through - I think my parents got them at a hardware store) and staple them around your windows. This helps keep the cold air from seeping through the single-pane glass.
I can remember when I was a child waking up in Sussex and the bed actually having ice on the cover that crackled when I got out... my breath had condensed and frozen in the covers!
Very informative video, straight to the point! Thank you!
I find Japan to be very warm in winter but I have now decided to use my heater as I stay home. Investing in thick curtains also help retaining the heat I would add :)
Im going to japan in a couple of months, and this tips are really awesome
A Patton PUH680-U space heater will keep a small apartment at 760 sqft at room temperature when the outside temp is above freezing. Freezing and below use 2 and place them at opposite sides of your place.
I lived in a 1 bedroom apartment for years that was only 760sqft and 2 of those heaters kept my entire apartment toasty warm during the winter.
I don't utilize a whole lot of electricity. With the the Patton heaters running I've never seen a bill bigger than $80/mth.
1:12 fascinating how a little packet of heat can sustain one for the day... it's like in little house on the prairie where the pioneers put heated bricks in blankets at the foot of the sled when they went to the next town over...
ah watching this made me miss winter so much. i lived in egypt for about 10 years and the winters there are pretty freakin cold. i'm currently in the philippines and it's hella hot the whole year round except when we get typhoons, that's when the weather gets sort of chilly. i do prefer winter over the summer tbh, and i miss the feeling of the cold haha. but during the summer here in the country, it's so hot to the point where we have to have the airconditioning turned on 24/7, which just increases our electricity bill.
this video was really helpful! thank you for posting this! i will definitely go buy the heating packs, try out the heat tech clothing, and look for a layering down jacket!!
We also have hot bottles and the thing that goes in the microwave in germany. Here it´s called "Wärmflasche" (warming bottle) and "Körnerkissen" (grains pillow). The second one you can craft yourself. Just sew a flat pillow out of cotton and pour it with 2/3 of rice or dried cherry cores. Now sew the opening shut so that your "pillow" is closed an heat it 600W for around 2-3min. You can use it over and over again. It helds up pretty well but if it gets wet you have to dry it fast or it will get mold. Also you can sew any shape you want. I saw pigs, owls, flowers etc.
NZ has pretty badly insulated housing. We tend to use oil heaters (one for each room) they plug into a wall socket and are safe to use through the night. (Also I have some medical background and it's not good practice to sleep in a room where the air is less than 18c as it affects the laminar flow of air into your lungs. No matter how warm you keep your body with blankets etc; if the air breathed in is cold; you are vulnerable to infection.
Ok, I'm going to be truly honest with you. I LOVE YOUR SWEATER! It's so cute, throughout this whole video is was looking mainly at your sweater
I just checked out the average temperatures in Japan and was shocked to see it's really similar to the UK! For some reason I always imagined Japan to have tropical weather.
I'm glad I don't live in japan anymore, it always was ridiculously cold in winter in my apartment.
uv thermal window tints/sheets. they stick to the window, with a very mild tint. what is does is stop or lessen temperate transition. Your heater is on, the heat will stay in, and the cold out. Ac on, cold stays in and hot out. I love them.
It's unfortunate that the heater is also the cooler, as heat rises and cold falls, the hot air will mostly be moving along the ceiling. We have it the same way out in the Sonoran Desert, luckily it's not cold enough to snow.
I know water heat bottles from when I was growing up in Germany. My mom used to put them on my stomach when I had a stomach ache, in addition to giving me fennel and chamomile tea.
I really love cold and winter especially when it's snowing. There is a really big mountain here in Bursa, Turkey and I really enjoy going to ski resorts and restaurant places on the mountain in winters. We actually have most of the things you mentioned in Turkey too, we only don't have Kotatsu (I've seen heating packs here but they are not very common.). There is heating in most houses though but some are still using heating stoves especially in little towns, villages and poor neighbourhoods. I don't cold winters are much of a problem for me but it's a real pain in the butt to survive in hot summers.
A lot of those tips are similar to what my grandma used to do when she was a kid in the great depression days. Bed warmers, layers of clothing, water bottles. The best to you guys over there. ..um.. it's like 50 degrees here in Oregon... what the heck? (stay warm!)
Very interesting. I've known about kotatsu for a long time but was not aware of some of the smaller things. This reminded me of a thing we used to have many years ago that was a cloth bag that was full of dried corn kernels,like popcorn but they were coated so you stick in in the microwave and they get hot but won't pop. So it's like a hot bean bag that stayed hot for hours. This was actually meant for sore muscles but you could use for any time you wanted to be warm.
In north Texas at least, the winters get fairly intense, especially when you factor in wind chill. Since the wind can get like 40mph and up, it feels like the temperature drops like ten degrees. And then we have our pipes freezing and roads icing over. We used a lot of space heaters, especially in the town I'm from since all the houses are super old and don't have central heating
The best tip I can give is using one (or more) layers of wool under your clothes. I don't know how common it is with Wool clothing in Japan, but in Norway where temperatures can reach below -30 degrees celsius (-22 degrees fahrenheit), we use lots of thin layers of wool to keep us warm. It's really really effective!
I know that at least Kari Traa ships to Japan, and that is a great brand with high quality clothes that lasts for years (so even if it's expensive, you save on it in the long run).
With how tiny your apt is, all you need is a couple of nice space heaters. You can just unlpug them and move them room to room.
I have a space heater because we had one week of temps of about 34 and windchill in the 20s. And water freezes at 32 so I consider that cold. But today I went for a ride on the Harley because the weather was that beautiful and begged for a bike ride.
I have to second what Exil says under Alexander's comment. Insulate your home. It'll help in the winter AND summer. Point a fan set to the low setting and point it at the ceiling too to circulate down the hot air that gets caught up there, or set a ceiling fan to its winter setting.
When using the heat packs, put them on top of blood vessel clusters in your body. The insides of your wrists, small of your back, back of your neck, and back of your knees. The blood will pick up that heat and warm your extremities more effectively.
Also, you're from Texas, make some of our chilli!
oh you guys have tatami flooring, my friend made a japanese design room in her house and i love the feeling of tatami under my feets! also its more comfy than hard wood floors if you lay down on them..
Haha! I'm from Australia and my friends don't think I have a concept of Winter either. My partner and I moved into a new house that is up on bricks and entirely tiled and we had condensation breath too! Those personal heaters are a Godsend.
my 4SLDK holiday home in Manazuru was built in 2008 and it has central heating (underfloor heating), I only go to Japan for summer holidays so I've never used it during the winter.
in my old house we had a heater that was a central one but it didnt really work, so usually we just left the oven cracked and turned it up a bit and got a space heater for each individual room
Why dont they add insulation when building their houses? i dont get that. I lived in Japan for one year and no one understood the word "insulation". :D Our house here in germany is so perfectly insulated that I rarely have to use the central heating in winter to sustain 21°C. In Japan in the other hand my olive oil was frozen one day in the kitchen (not in the fridge :D)
I don't know but it drives me crazy! I miss insulation...
It's definitely the 2 things I miss about American houses when I go to Japan, central AC/heating and insulation/double pane windows... It definitely makes it hard to want to take a shower when the bathroom's all tile and the tub's stainless steel. We've got some electric and kerosene heaters to warm up the bathroom, hallways, and entry, but I usually turn that on 15-20 minutes before I take my shower.
It's even worse because it also means that when you air condition in the summer, the house also heats back up faster.
In Germany you have winter.. The average winter temperture in the Coldest place in Japan is like -11. In Tokyo it doesn't get below 5 very often not -5.. 5C.. the RECORD low in Tokyo is -9C
That is put on a sweater weather, not "surviving winter in Japan" weather.
If she has Nordic friends that think it is cold in Tokyo.. ... those are made Nordic people.
Then again Most Nordic Countries are actually really mild in the Winter... Ask someone from Calgary or nearly anywhere in Canada (Minus Southern Ontario and Southern BC) if Japan is cold.
indeed, the german winters are much colder BUT: when I was in japan it was almost impossible to live inside. It was horrible. Even if the minimal temperature was +10°C. The japanese houses usually dont have any insulation. It really means NOTHING XD. I could even feel the cold win, when my windows were closed.
Takes lot of time to get used to Winter anywhere. I been in Minnesota my whole life and one thing I learn is to get ready for Winter before it hits. So the best way to get ready for next Winter is buy Winter stuff after Winter is over and most Winter stuff is on sale at the begin Sring then get some good deals before next Winter.
Another tip for heating up a little; if you have and use an oven, when done with it and it's cooling down. slip an oven-mitten in the oven-spring so the rest-heat is spreading through out the kitchen. (sorry if something is unclear.my english are usually pretty good but I just couldn't find the words for everything... *Swede*)
A good space heater should be plenty to keep at least 1 room really warm. I have an oil radiater style heater that is very efficient, it distrubutes heat evenly and its safe enough to leave on overnight.
This is so unbelievable as Japan is vulcanic and has geothermic energy for free - just look how Iceland is doing it, they do not even need oil! I did not know that such a developped country like Japan has freezing temperatures and no isolation in their buildings.
I used to live in Canada for a few years until a couple years ago, my wife and I spent like $1600 on down jackets our first winter... well... we didn't "need" to spend $900 on the Canada Goose "Expedition" parka... but it was the only one we could find at first... it's the kind of parka they wear on Antarctica... Our old apartment would be somewhat cold sometimes, as the old heaters were some things near the floor in each room by the window... we found that taping the seems and every imaginably crack we could find... like... the wind seems, the... door seems.... it helped keep our apartment warmer.
Where are you from originally? Your name is Swedish, isn't it? It can get very cold in Scandanavia!
Super helpful! Thank you
I've heard this before from a German guy who said he's never had a winter in Germany where he was colder than his winter in Japan...and Germany gets colder. Apparently, not only do the Japanese not believe in central heating, but they also don't believe in insulating their houses. They like to say "One should experience the seasons", but personally I think that's just a poor excuse for not being on part with modern, first world climate control. I had a friend from the Himalayas who tell me about the lack of central heating there. When I asked why his family didn't have it (they were rich) he said "You don't understand....we're backwards". lol.
SepherStar I can confirm this, in Europe I've never experienced feeling cold in winter, inside the house. Like we don't waste energy so we still wear sweaters inside the house but its never uncomfortable
Never found it too cold in Tokyo. Though I lived in a town called Tottori. Those winter mornings waking up without heating/insulation!
your room looks tidier than usually :DDDDD
We have one of those space heaters as well xD because our central heating has the bad Habit of stopping to function when it gets really cold. like last winter it had about -20°C (outside and our heater stopped working) and I hadn't even realized it because when I start getting cold I simply lay down under more and more blankets... When my mom came home and realized it had only about 14°C In our house we had to start our stove and stuff on until we got our heater on again :D Since then we also have one of those small ones (for emergencies ;D )
I remember going to my grandmother's old house, (we moved) and sleeping under the kotatsu while eating mandrin oranges(because it's a tradition). It it amazing. I tend to find uniqlo's heat tech leggings not working out with me. Although I live in california, when it get's cold it get's super cold
I looked it up, it's about -10'C in December as a low, didn't find wind chill, but I think that would give it extra kick. I come from Northern Ontario, Canada, so it doesn't seem so bad during the cold months to me.
We use a Gas heater down stairs, and a electric heater up stairs, not super bad, power is still REALLY expensive though.
Just for information though, our lows during December are about -26"C on average, in January to February you can see a low of -50'C with windchill.
Thank you for this vid! I'm from Indonesia which is a tropical country which means i never experienced winter in my life. currently i am studying abroad in japan and i don't know how to survive the winter as i heard it is really cold bc of the bad insulation.
My university lodging has not be heated for 2 weeks now, so after 1 week freezing when I would come back (while I would wear skirt without any stocking outside with no problem), I took my family's space heater and now it's such a pleasure walking in my tiny room without having the urge to get back immediately into my bed!
My mate doesn't have a heater, and she won't use mine..I feel so bad for her ><
I live in Florida and live in a tent for the last 5 years so I understand waking up and seeing your breath ...
Well, I do have heaters in my home, but they never work, so during the first winter in our apartment, the boyfriend and I ended up freezing our butts off at 59 degrees…So the number one thing we use to keep our living room (were we spend most of our day) warm is candles. We have around 6 small ones and 3 large ones burning throughout the day with a closed door, which heats up the room super nicely. when we shift to the bedroom at night we usually just put the blow dryer under the blankets for 10 minutes lol. bathroom, kitchen and hallway just stay cold, because those are the rooms we spend the least time in and we can't be bothered heating them up for half an our of usage (like cooking or showering).
Oklahoma Winters are some of the coldest according to some of my friends. Layers of ice then layers of snow then covered in more layers of ice. So the best tricks I use is space heaters are the best for heating only the rooms you need. Keep a small space heater going in the bathroom (although not at full power, but enough to make it bearable, which also keeps the pipes from freezing). As for blankets, Fleece blankets (the THICK fleece, not the micro-fleece junk) traps heat and keeps you warm ALL NIGHT. Layers of thin clothing is better than thick layers any day. And there are some people I know of that uses aluminum foil on their windows to either trap heat during the winter or keep a room cool during the summer.
I was a Texan that went to live in Rhode Island. It was hard to adjust to the cold until I found an electric mattress pad. It is amazing! About 15 mins before you go to bed you turn it on, and when you get into bed it is nice and toasty. It keeps the whole bed warm, and there is less chance of a cover theft stealing the electric blanket and waking up cold.
When I visited Japan, every room in the house was plumbed for natural gas and a portable heater was installed (one was under a table). Never heated a room when no one was in it. Other Japanese that I knew used portable kerosene heaters. At night we used a lot of blnkets and curled up with each other.
Based on USDA growth zones, I'd estimate a fairly handsome portion of Japan freezes/snows at some point in Winter. There are very old ways Europeans used to insulate their homes back in the day that you may find useful since Fall is in the air.
1. Tapestries! In addition to their decorative value, tapestries and rugs were often used to help insulate the lords and ladies from the cold outside. If you hang an old comforter over a window or sliding door as a curtain/tapestry, you will feel the difference! Tapestries/rugs/comforters/quilts hung decoratively over walls that have no insulation can act not only as insulation, but they can help with sound reduction as well! :)
2. Small, fuzzy animals. The lap dog was introduced as a way for the rulers of the land to stay warm, and gives them a cadre of poison-tasters others might not expect before a "favorite" pooch keeled over because something not healthy for their human was fed to the doggy first. Cats are more dual-purpose so they were more often the bed-warmer/lap-warmer of poor, old ladies who had plenty of mice, rats, and other vermin for the cats to eat skittering about.
3. Wool. Not only would Europeans use wool to insulate themselves (granny sweaters are the warmest!) but they would stuff wool, straw, wood shavings, and anything else they could think of in their walls trying to keep warm in Winter.
4. Straw. Straw clothing is not entirely an Asian thing, and bales of straw not yet fed to or used as bedding for the animals was often placed in good spots to help insulate a home. Canadians and others in northern portions of the US still often follow this practice to help save on heating costs in Winter. We used to place straw bales around the outside of our home in Michigan and Mom would use them for garden mulch after the snow melted for good in the Spring, for example.
5. Mud. Surprisingly, mud and dirt are relatively good insulators if applied in large-enough quantities. I cite green roofs (the ones with dirt and growing things in them) as a good example in modern construction. You may find applying mud to the outside of your home may be dangerous for your health depending upon your neighbors and their access to farming tools and torches... ;)
A more modern, lightweight, flexible option for insulation would be to find a supplier for spray-foam insulation for relatively cheap. There are also heat-reflecting options with insulating foam in the middle that can be stapled in-place.
If I were renting a place in Japan, I would likely get cheap comforters or sew my own "quilts" with nice, fluffy batting in the middle, apply a layer of cheap emergency blanket in the middle or on one side, and hang it up as an art piece of some sort along my walls and over my windows. I'm sure there are lots of very attractive, affordable prints, or you could use the appliqué method, to make some amazing "tapestries" that you can later wash, line dry, fold-up, pile into a cedar-scented box (I like using cheap cedar balls or disks), and forget about until next Fall. You might even decide to craft one for your bed to help reflect your collective body-heat back to yourselves and as a general "throw" blanket around the house. I suppose if some spray adhesive was used to secure the cheap emergency blanket to the batting in the middle so it wouldn't crackle, that might help with the noise. It all depends upon how crafty you want to be. ;)
I forgot! We also use fans in our home not only to circulate cool air in Summer, but warm air in Winter! If we're using a space heater, my household typically uses fans to help blow around the warm air. Don't know if all of this will help, but I hope so! ;)
I live in a temperate climate but my building isn't insulated (just because it's old, not to feel the seasons). We had an unusually cold winter here once (high 30's at night), and before I got the wall heater working, it was the same temperature inside. I actually wanted to stay at work because the thought of going home was so miserable.
I live in a tropical humid country so I can't possibly imagine the cold you guys go through in japanese winters. I might be moving to JP soon and this kinda makes me worry - thanks for the tips.
Off topic:you look sooo pretty with this hairstyle!
Thanks for sharing! :)
Reminds me of Texas in the 1950s. One board thick walls, heating via fireplace and a gas heater in the bathroom. That was it.
Hi, do you have one like this for surviving summer?
Thanks for all your very useful videos!!
Normally for my room I just use a space heater. It does the job of keeping me nice and warm during the winter months. Plus snuggling with heavy blankets. ^_^
I've been living in Germany the past three winters. The first one was bad, also because we lived at a ground floor apartment facing the backyard, so it was really humid and we had the central heating on everyday between september-march. The last two we've been in a flat on the third floor and it is so warm. The walls are so thick it is nice warm in winter and cool in summer. Except those really cold or hot days.
But I don't know if it is warm at my flat because my neighbours have the heating going on all day, because is not that cold outside (2.5ºC right now), because I am getting use to it, or what, but we've barely used the central heating this winter. One thing for sure: this building was erected in 1927 I think and it is better than my 10 years old parent's home in Spain.
I've been thinking about getting a kotasu for the Minnesota winters.
very informative thanks
I giggled at "hot water heater". I still think it's weird that kettles aren't really a thing in America (and probably other places). My tip for cold weather is to buy a sleeping bag. They're soooo warm and not too expensive. My mum got me one for christmas a few years ago, and I love it. If it's really cold I'll spend the whole day in it :P
If you get a humidifier, it will help you feel less cold for the temperature. If it's a hot-water humidifier, it'll warm it up a bit, but even if it doesn't, it'll still be more comfortable.
At our house which I think we might have the same sort of winters as Japan here in Michigan I'm not sure though, geographically the positioning is about the same. But, we have a central air system but we burn wood to heat the house and the water during the winter time and our bill is pretty low and we always have hot water.
I live up north in a mobile home with little insulation and poor heating so I know this pain but I've learned the tricks of wearing 2-3 bathrobes and pajama pants and wearing pajama pants under my denims
I've been to Japan during the winter season at least twice, but I can't remember much how it was like. Although I'm definitely certain most people will need thermal underwear indoors or outdoors during the coldest months. (I used to get my thermal wear from Uniqlo in Japan, but now I can just buy them here in the US so it is much easier preparing for trips.)
I have an electric blanket too! They're expensive but so worth it, especially when its -30C outside!