Tiny city gas heater shockingly effective for a big 4LDK

I live in a sizeable UR danchi 4LDK. We have a single aircon and it’s powerful but nowhere near sufficient to handle the whole apartment, so we supplement with a kotatsu and portable electric heater. Unfortunately, this winter we’ve repeatedly blown the 30A breaker after acquiring a few additional appliances so it’s become a real annoyance to have to run around and turn stuff off before using the microwave or the hair dryer. The other day I got a flyer for an end-of-winter sale at the local gas heater distributor, and it occurred to me that we have city gas hookups in every room so switching to supplemental gas heating might alleviate the electricity burden.

I went on Amazon and got the smallest Rinnai portable gas heater (SRC-365E) as well as a gas hose (because apparently my local home center doesn’t sell prefab gas hoses). Hooked it up today and… holy shit. Within 10 minutes the entire LDK area was downright *toasty*, and if I left the door to my office open it actually kept it at a reasonable temperature there too. While we usually set the aircon at like 23C to make sure it actually heats up enough, this bad boy can be set to 20C and basically the whole apartment actually feels like 20C. And it’s the most basic model!

The requirement for frequent ventilation seems like a small price to pay for a single device that can fully satisfy our heating needs. I’m also expecting that our gas bill will rise by less than our electric bill falls, since gas is quite a bit cheaper per kW. Anyways I just wanted to share in case anyone else is struggling with electric heating this winter and hadn’t considered the gas option.

by jotakami

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