Japan sets an example

the Japanese don't do it cause they are cheap - they pay dearly for expensive homes that are not insulated. They do it because they are ripped off by the housing/construction companies.

Jef

 

Incredible. It makes no sense to build an insulation-less house. No wonder energy costs are so high. What's with no insulation---is it ultra-expensive there for some reason?

Given the choice, I'd put in insulation and skip the sheet rock for most walls; maybe one can substitute some sort of cheap cardboard-like wheeting.

Do the local authorities there also charge astronomical building permit/inspection fees? Any "impact fees", such as increasingly-common up-front fees for parks and recreation facilities here?

Do they use "modular", or any kind of pre-fab construction there?

 

Jef,
Your posts have been interesting insights into life in Japan but raise at least two questions with me. What do you mean by "not insulated"? All buildings are "insulated" to some extent. Do you mean that they do not have double glazing? Or that the walls are extremely thin? (Here in the UK where brick walls are traditional, it became customary from about 1920 for new house walls to be built with a two-inch cavity as insulation between an inner and outer wall. Since the 1960s it has become common to inject such cavities with some sort of filling to improve the insulation further. What is a traditional or typical house wall in Japan made of?

You also said that "Japan is the only country I know of where housing values decline from the minute your house is built and valued at close to 0 after 10 years." Does this mean that if I were in Japan I could buy a 10-year old house for a very small sum? If so, how much?

 

I just typed a rather long answer to your questions and lost it...

Here are the main points:

Traditional houses (pre-WWII) were well built and well designed and were very comfortable in winter and summer.

Housing in Japan since the war has been very poorly built - especially in cities. Walls are paper thin - and often made of, well, paper. It is very rare to see double windows, walls are made of straw and mud and, I have been told, asbestos. There is virtually no insulation as we know it. Drywall (called plasterboard in some countries) is not common - it was hard to find a builder who had worked with it before when I was researching building my own house here.

Floors in older buildings are tatami (straw) mats - there is usually one room in a house or apartment that is called the 'western' room and it will have a wooden floor. In newer buildings and houses, there is usually a combination of wooden and straw flooring - the problem here is that the tatami mats are meant to be replaced every couple of years. But they cost a lot and most people keep them longer than they should and they get infected with tatami mites. Next time you are in Japan in the summer, have a close look at women's legs (as if you could help it) - you will see bites (like mosquito bites) everywhere.

Houses and apartments are where you sleep - entertaining is almost never done in a residence - Japan has the highest number of eating/drinking establishments per capita in the world. Because of the paper walls and lack of privacy, the 'love hotel' industry is huge here - even married couples need to rent a place for a few hours where they can have some privacy.

Land is very expensive - usually far more valuable than any structure built on it - but land prices have dropped dramatically in the last 5 years.

The construction industry is probably the most blatantly corrupt in the country - the government did not allow wooden framed 'foreign' houses to be built here until after the Hanshin earthquake where 5,000 people died when their homes and apartments collapsed. The SF earthquake was about the same size and happened at about the same time and very few people died from collapsed buildings.

On the news now, there are daily reports of poor construction - an architect was just arrested for designing and building 34 new apartment buildings in Tokyo that have had to be evacuated because they are unsafe. Although it has been going on for years, it is just coming to the surface now. Hopefully the days of paying incredibly high prices for very poor quality housing and buildings is nearing an end.

New homes here are mostly prefab boxes built from very cheap materials with plastic siding and cost a fortune - they may come with some fancy electronic amenities but are severely lacking in what the rest of the developed world would consider basic - sound walls and efficient heating cooling are either outrageously expensive or simply not available. The fact that these homes and buildings have virtually no resale value speaks volumes.

It is possible to buy a 10 year old house, with asbestos walls, that is freezing in winter and stifling hot and moldy in summer - but I don't think they are a great deal at any price. Most properties with a structure that old are sold with the buyer intending to tear down and build a new, expensive and crappy home.

In our area just outside of Tokyo, it is quite sad. There are a few very well built, beautiful old farm houses that are abandoned or for sale - but they are mostly home now to termites and other insects and the costs involved in restoration are huge.

If anyone is interested in reading about what really goes on in Japan, I suggest 'Dogs and Demons' by Alex Kerr - although depressing, its the best account I have read about Japan's incredible economic boom and how the same factors that created the boom are now ruining the country.

Despite all this, it is a fascinating country to live in!


Jef

 

I have family members involved in single home construction and according to them an average house in North America is far from being energy efficient and up to par in quality. I am talking about an average build house. People are being ripped off big time in North America construction as well so it's not just a Japanese phenomenon. I hardly ever came across a developer that is energy efficiency conscious. Profit is the only margin being applied.

 

fjef, you remind me of someone who moved to North America from Sweden and said exactly the same thing about North American construction, how insufficient and outdated it is in comparison to Scandinavia. So the premise of your response is to diminish Japanese construction methods vs. North American, where you can hardly support the North American superiority with it's home building technologies on the regular basis in the real world application, excluding expensive houses.

 

I am not suggesting that N. American houses are superior to European - I am saying that Japanese houses are very poor quality for the price you pay.

I will be much better off designing an energy efficient home and importing the materials, including a solar energy system, from Canada. Maybe I should check out Scandinavian designs too?

 

fjef, you lived in Japan for 18 years so you definitely have a better perspective than I do, since I only visited on and off for many years, but one of the explainations I came across was a religious-aesthetic one: the Japanese are extremely attuned to the seasons, thanks to their ancient agrarian national religion of Shinto. When it's winter, you should know it's winter. Don't walk around in a T-shirt pretending it's summer; it should feel cold.

Also, side from the Shinto angle I mentioned, there's also a strong streak of Stoicism running through Japanese culture; suffering builds character, and what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

Perhaps, the cultural differences will always set us apart from the Japanese and we may never understand why things are done one way and not the other.

 

fjef, I also find your comment about Japanese not knowing about Drywall a little strange.
I would love to find a roofer who would sheath my roof with kawara, do you think that I can go to an average roofer in Canada and ask for it without getting a hint of bewilderment?

 

fjef, I am sorry, I am not trying to be argumentative, I am just trying to balance the debate.

 

Hey Jef,
You are sounding like a regular Japanese, already. I have visited Japan
4 to 5 times a year during the 70s and the 80s for business(80%) and pleasure. Conservation is a relative thing in Japan. Costs dictate everything. Huge amounts of waste(as compared to other nations) can be found in paper products(beautiful gift wrappings) and plastic products.

I for one will not compare on what you are comparing, I suppose, to us people living in the USA. Japan is just Japan. So are other nations. USA is the leader in most all aspects of what is right and correct. Otherwise, we will not be here the way we are or get there where we want to. We are not wasteful any more that the Japanese or the other poor nations are wasteful in the own aways. This is a relative thing.

I like and enjoy what we have here. None better.

 

???????????????????????????????????????
did I miss something???

did God select speaking to you and not me?

 

repete message deleted

 

The drywall comment came from Jack Kelly's message when he said he would 'skip sheet rock' - I only wanted to point out how different Japanese construction and materials are.

You may also have a hard time finding a good roofer in Japan for kawara tiles these days - traditional builders, like my father-in-law was, are fast becoming extinct.

Part of the design for the house involves adding a genkan (entrance) and furo (bath) - the architect in Canada (in Calgary) knew exactly what I wanted and was not bewildered at all - that did surprise me.

As for the religion/asthetic comment, I don't see it. If we are supposed to feel cold in winter in Japan, why are office heating systems on full blast in most cases? Our neighbour is a local priest with a reputation for womanizing, drinking, gambling (maajong) and he drives a Lexus. He pays no tax - has a really nice house - and seems to be one of the few around here who has figured out how to enjoy life, rather than just endure it. I don't think Japanese are religious at all - superstitious maybe - they do tend to hedge their bets by going to both Shinto shrines and buddhist temples depending on the occasion.

And if Japan is so in tune with nature, why have nearly all the rivers been concreted? Give Alex Kerr's book a read - otherwise, I'll have to start quoting him.

 

Sorry Andy - other than the wasted paper, I don't understand or agree with anything in your post...

 

A man after my own heart! I have not made any type of time pmt for over 41 years now. Rather than run my extremely inefficient central forced air gas fired heating system, I have shut it off and bought a natural gas fired ventless space heater and mounted on the red brick floor extension in front of my fireplace. Contrary to Californias BS prohibitions the heater works extremely well and comfortably warms my somewhat large family room and kitchen space. (250 square feet) This is an infrared heater and can be found on line for about $200. Again all these things that individuals do is commendable and of course selfish. Or economically sound. Whether it's dressing warmer indoors, recycling, insulating ones house better, buying a Prius.........these are all just stop gap measures, until the crude oil problem is solved. Some months ago when everybody was crying about high gas prices and I remarked that $7.00/Gal was the norm in Europe, a young man exclaimed what do I care, I don't live in Europe! An extremely myopic and selfish viewpoint! Perhaps when he has to walk to the grocery store and finds very little on the shelf, these type of people will realize that we are one world!

 

hopefully one of the things i'll be able to do at UIUC is take this "Year in Japan" program.. where you... live a year in Japan with a host family. I never got the impression that houses were built so poorly when I went before, but I only stayed at hotels :-/

 

there are many ways to heat cheaply. my ex was EXTREMEMELY cold blooded. she was always cold. so i installed a Platinum Cat heater in our camper for her. it uses radiant heat and she loved it. the heater used less than half what the regular forced air heater used.

 

doesn't that mean she's warm blooded? If she's cold blooded, then her body would adapt to the cold and she wouldn't mind as much

i could really use a heater....
if only i were home *homesick and cries*
anyways, I have these great fan heaters by Holmes. They push a lot of air so you can feel warmth wherever you direct it, and its also very silent so you can sleep at night it's got auto climate control as well as manual and i wuv it

 

cold blooded means NOT adapting to extremes in temperatures. cold blooded animals go into a state of suspended animation because they have no mechanism for regulating their body temperatures. their body temps drop, their heart slows down, circulation slows down, they get so cold they can no longer move.

i am warm blooded, when the temp drops, my body creates MORE heat to maintain my body temperature. trust me, i meant exactly what i said.

when it got cold, she piled on clothes and sat. i told her that was the reason why she was cold, she didnt move and that made it worse. she really didnt care to hear any kind of explanation.