Heating issues

Larger living area heater.

Yesterday morning, a few minutes before the boys left for school, the main living area heater blinged its "I need more kerosene" call. So I dutifully trooped outside in my winter coat to fill its tank up. 


My 12 y.o. left while I was out there. He called out for me before he left and found me in the back of the car port filling up the heater's tank. 

He said, "Is it fun, doing that?" 

Interesting question. 
My reply? "No, I don't like it at all. It is smelly and dirty, plus it's cold out here. But it has to be done."

Smaller lounge heater.

I don't know how most Australians in the colder parts of the country heat their houses. Growing up in sunny Queensland (but chilly Toowoomba) we had fan heaters in the bathroom and an oil heater for the main living area until I was 15. It had an outside tank that I presume fed directly into the heater. No filling up of kerosene tanks by hapless residents. After that we moved and my parents have had a wood heater ever since. Which is a wonderful thing, as long as there is someone else splitting the timber. Though it can be a bit tedious to get going. In Brisbane a heater is rarely required. Occasionally a small fan heater on the feet at breakfast and in the bathroom at shower time.


In Hokkaido we had monster kerosene heaters that usually had outside tanks. We also had a heater in the toilet room to stop the water in the tank and bowl from freezing. And essential were the pipe heaters, which stopped your pipes freezing and bursting (or you turned your water off every night and drained the pipes, which is very tedious).

Siphoning pump. Cost? 100 yen!

Here in Tokyo we have smaller kerosene heaters. We have one big one that does the kitchen-dining-office area and one smaller one in the lounge room that opens off the dining room. Both of these have tanks that need filling outside by hand from a plastic storage container using a plastic syphoning pump. In the coldest part of winter we need to refill the heater tanks about every 24 hours and go through two plastic storage containers a week (which then need to be refilled at the petrol station, or you can buy kerosene from roaming small tank trucks). 


The big heater is pretty sophisticated, it has a timing button, so you can put it on half an hour before you'll be in the room (but no longer or it turns off automatically). It also has a thermostat that you can manually set. It does require "babysitting", however. Every three hours it beeps and you have to press a button to reassure it that you do indeed want it to keep heating! You only get two chances at that, if you miss the second one, it turns off at the third beep, you have only a couple of minutes to hit the button! 


We take a "only heat the rooms you're using" approach. We try to keep the main room at about 18 degrees Celsius, but on the coldest days it can take several hours to reach that temperature (it gets down to low single figures at night inside), much longer if the house has been unheated the previous day. The guys like it when I'm home most of the day because the house is much warmer that day and the next!


The boys have electric heaters in their bedrooms, which are suitable for short periods of time. And we have one of those in the bathroom too. The toilets have heated seats (which are divine).


We have poorer insulation than in Sapporo, especially the windows. Windows up there all have at least two panes (called Double Glazed), it makes a big difference.


Some people use their air conditioners for heating, but kerosene is cheaper, if fume-ier and a little more inconvenient. 


Actually I was surprised to read something with one of the boys recently that apparently came from an American perspective. There was a conversation between a child and their mum. The child pointed out that another child at school smelt bad. The mother replied that it was because that family were poor and had to use kerosene for heating. 


Wow, I see it as a better use of resources, but obviously I'm influenced by Japan where kerosene heating is pretty common. And by a budget mentality: why spend money when you don't have to, when there is a cheaper alternative that works just fine (even if it is a little inconvenient and smelly).


Phew, this has turned into a large post. I didn't realise I had so much to say about heating!