Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, Not Places

I find it interesting that they continually use the past tense in the article. While it is true that the west has largely abandoned these ideas, they are still very strong in the more temperate climates of Asia. I live in Shizuoka prefecture in Japan. It does not get very cold here compared to my home town of Winnipeg, Canada. On the very coldest days it might just dip below freezing at night. While some people heat their homes, my experience is that most do not.

It took me a long time to get used to it, but I prefer living this way. Since most people have not experienced it, I will point out a few things.

1) I would not do this if the normal daytime temperature was not above freezing. People's comments about water pipes bursting, etc, etc are right on. But more to the point, it's just plain dangerous for your health. Instead, I would heat the house to just above 5 degrees C (41 F) (see next point).

2) From experience, 5 degrees is the point at which my body starts to have trouble. Below that, my extremities shut down and frostbite is absolutely certain unless I am careful. Also, if you do not pay attention to your body, it is easy to get too cold. This can raise your blood pressure. Then when you warm yourself up, your blood pressure can crash. This can give you severe headaches and can even be quite dangerous. To be honest, I'm actually fine down to freezing temps if I pay attention, but the point at which I need to pay attention seems to be about 5 degrees C.

3) Baths/showers. Some people commented about mold. Where I live, mold is a constant problem because in the summer it often goes weeks on end without the temperature dropping below 30C (86F) even at night. Humidity is usually in the 80% range. So we have mold problems all the time. The key is to wipe down the surfaces with a towel after you have a bath and to air things out frequently (see next point). But a bath/shower (preferably bath) is practically mandatory when it is very cold. If you don't warm yourself up at least a few times a day, you will have health problems. The best time is right before you go to bed (this took a lot of getting used to!). That's the time your body needs the heat the most.

4) Airing out the house. The thing I could never figure out about Japanese culture was opening the windows in the middle of winter every hour or so to "exchange the air". Many people will use a small kerosene heater, so you need to do this so that you don't die of carbon monoxide poisoning. We use a charcoal hibachi (ceramic vase with ashes -- not a BBQ) to heat small areas and need to do the same. But even if you are using fancy electric radiant heaters (see below), Japanese people air out their houses frequently. That's because they aren't heating the air. I now do it religiously too and I'm convinced that it makes me feel better (the old me would think me absolutely crazy and probably many people reading this think so too!)

5) Even though you are heating bodies, not air, it is best to create small microclimates as stated in the article. Sliding paper doors and shoji screens are the traditional way of doing it in Japan. A low coffee table with a blanket over it and possibly a heater underneath as well (kotatsu) is amazingly nice. It always seems a shame to destroy the cozy atmosphere when you "exchange the air", but since the space is small, it heats up again very quickly.

6) In Japan they recently came out with "smart" heaters. They have cameras which can identify people and aim jets of warm air at the people. I've never actually tried it, but people tell me they are amazing. Heating bodies, not air does not have to be low tech!

7) Within reason, getting cold and then getting warm again is a pleasurable experience. The thing I look forward to most in the winter are things like jumping into bed with a hot water bottle when you are cold (seriously, if you have never tried it, it's incredible). Eating hot soups and stews in the winter are amazing. Warming your hands with a hot cup of coffee is wonderful.

When I first came to Japan, I asked an old woman what I could do to learn Japanese culture. She told me that to be Japanese is to be acutely aware of the seasons. It is the contrast that makes life interesting. In the winter it is cold and in the summer it is hot. Avoiding the season by constantly adjusting your environment robs you of that contrast. Over many years, I have learned to appreciate and enjoy that advice, although at first it was horrible ;-) With time and experience, though, I feel that I am much better off living this way. I hope this proves to be interesting to those who have never experienced this way of life.

Agreed. They seemed oddly insistent on pushing their implicit premise that heating large volumes of air is wasteful.

http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e8883301bb07e...

However, the volume of air is not inextricably linked to energy expenditure, which only happens when heat flows down a gradient, not while it sits in a room. We can model it like a simple resistive circuit; the equations are analogous.

    V  = I * R
    ∆T = P * R
    
    P is heat energy expended per time (power)
    ∆T is the temperature difference between hottest and coldest regions
    R is thermal resistance, a measure of how insulating something is

Bringing the thermal gradients into the room (as opposed to holding them across the wall alone) adds a small, fixed bit of thermal resistance "in series" to what's already in the walls and windows.

    P = ∆T/R
    R = Rwall + Rroom

Rwall is a function of the amount of insulation, while Rroom is fixed by the geometry of the room. If Rwall==Rroom, you can save 50% of your heating bill by huddling over your heated desk. However, if Rwall=10*Rroom, which it may well be if your house is properly insulated, you can't even save 10% of your heating bill with area heating.

alricb is right: don't let the name of the site fool you. Insulation is the cheap low-tech solution that works, while spot-heating is the gimmicky high-tech solution that only works in specific circumstances and even then only after ignoring the time, money, and discomfort invested in reinventing the wheel.

Seems related to a recent news about nanowire clothes for personal heating:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856501

This said, I tried working at my computer for a few hours in a cold room with layers on but, obviously, no gloves, and my hands didn't like it.

The same was at school age: to save on heating we'd only heat up the kitchen (around 19C, 65F) so my brothers and I would do our homework there instead of our rooms (15C, or 59F).

One winter when I was younger and had my own apartment, I was shocked by how much it cost to heat the whole townhouse, so I shut the heat off, enclosed my computer desk with a 5' x 5' x 6' PVC framework over which I draped blankets. Inside was a space heater that I only had to run for 10 minutes to get the whole space nice and toasty. Moved out next year.

Just use local heating (Heat Tape) on your pipes too. No need to heat the whole crawlspace just to keep your pipes from freezing.