Winter is coming. I moved to a house near the mountains in Kyoto. Only 1 room has an aircon so looking to purchase an electric heater that won’t make the electric bill explode. Any recommendations?
Just check the ene rate on the box… Legally required to display it. Anything above 100% would be good. Usually they also say how much it would cost to run in a year.
It doesn’t really matter. Electric heaters are 100% energy efficient. Usually ‘wasted energy’ is lost to heat, which for heaters doesn’t matter. The environment matters much more, room size, insulation and so on.
I’d look at an oil heater from Iris Ohyama
A forced air kerosene heater will be your most cost effective solution. I agree with the inexpensive but generally good quality offered by the Iris Ohyama brand. I had an Aladdin Blue Flame in our house in Yamanashi and while it wasn’t perfect we kept it in the hallway of the house (our house was old and drafty – the hallway might as well have been open to the outdoors) and it kept the temps a good 10-15 degrees warmer than outdoors (and made going to the toilet/bath tolerable – the kids enjoyed standing around it too – we literally had ice in the toilet/bath some mornings).
DeLongi also makes electric oil heaters which are nice efficient and affective (look like plug in radiators) but since cost seems to be a driving factor for you I’d advise against them, they’re more expensive both in initial cost and running.
When I was in college I had a little fan heater that really warmed my room up, cheap and reliable but a bit expensive to run.
I used electric blanket instead of heater for sleep. I was in Sendai and it was around -5c in winter. With proper clothes, it is pretty comfy.
Consider installing aircons in other rooms? If it’s a rental it should still be ok to do so long as you get permission. Of course installation is a bit pricey(though you CAN diy it and there are places that will rent you the tools required. You only need an electricians license to add a power socket, so if you already have a suitable one that wouldn’t be necessary) so if you think you will move again in an year or two then it might not be such a cost effective method.
A heater does exactly that… it uses electrical energy to create heat energy. All the heat you get comes from electricity.
My understanding(as a non-american who has never had an american “air conditioner”) is that the aircons in japan are what americans call heat pumps. Through a compression/decompression cycle with a phase change they move heat from one place to another, even overcoming a temperature differential. This process doesn’t require creating heat from energy(though there is some created in the cycle due to inefficiences), you’re just making cold air outside colder to make your room warmer.
I know for sure that when we used the floor heater to heat our living room it was way worse(energywise) than using the aircon. The only thing worth considering is that using the aircon in heating mode does dry the room up a fair bit.
A bitcoin mining rig might be your most cost efficient heat source. The problem is that it is hard do adjust the heat output
The most cost-efficient is to not heat the whole room but to only heat your body – i.e. electric blankets, kotatsu etc.
Any electric heater is by definition 100% efficient (any waste electricity is… heat), but electricity is expensive.
If you want to heat the whole room, kerosene will be cheaper than electricity, but watch out for the dangers (CO buildup, fire hazard)
Well, I dunno what it costs but I know back home my sister didn’t have central air and used a tiny little ceramic heater to warm whatever room she was in. She’d crank that mother fucker all the way up and it would be like an oven wherever she was.
I’m join… But I think the real question is which energy is most cheap in Japan kerosene or electric? Someone know the rate KW/¥???
こたつ
Cheapest is the kerosene heaters, but they can kill you with carbon monoxide and you need to transport and store the kerosene.
I use the oil filled heaters, which are basically plug in radiators (not sure if Americans use that word?) because they don’t get too hot to touch so are safe for kids and heat whole rooms very well. Supposedly they are cost-effective, but if you want them to heat the house you have to ramp up the wattage (it’s adjustable) and the thermostat level (I think they base their yen per hour price claims on the lowest settings).
Also having a humidifier running helps.
A wood stove, assuming you have access to wood you can burn. (Seriously, I plan to install one in my next house.)
If you are looking at *electric* heaters then aircons (aka “heat pumps”) are by far the most efficient way to turn electricity into cool or hot air. Much more so than the cheaper “plug into the wall” type heaters.
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Just check the ene rate on the box… Legally required to display it. Anything above 100% would be good. Usually they also say how much it would cost to run in a year.
It doesn’t really matter. Electric heaters are 100% energy efficient. Usually ‘wasted energy’ is lost to heat, which for heaters doesn’t matter. The environment matters much more, room size, insulation and so on.
I’d look at an oil heater from Iris Ohyama
A forced air kerosene heater will be your most cost effective solution. I agree with the inexpensive but generally good quality offered by the Iris Ohyama brand. I had an Aladdin Blue Flame in our house in Yamanashi and while it wasn’t perfect we kept it in the hallway of the house (our house was old and drafty – the hallway might as well have been open to the outdoors) and it kept the temps a good 10-15 degrees warmer than outdoors (and made going to the toilet/bath tolerable – the kids enjoyed standing around it too – we literally had ice in the toilet/bath some mornings).
DeLongi also makes electric oil heaters which are nice efficient and affective (look like plug in radiators) but since cost seems to be a driving factor for you I’d advise against them, they’re more expensive both in initial cost and running.
When I was in college I had a little fan heater that really warmed my room up, cheap and reliable but a bit expensive to run.
I used electric blanket instead of heater for sleep. I was in Sendai and it was around -5c in winter. With proper clothes, it is pretty comfy.
Consider installing aircons in other rooms? If it’s a rental it should still be ok to do so long as you get permission. Of course installation is a bit pricey(though you CAN diy it and there are places that will rent you the tools required. You only need an electricians license to add a power socket, so if you already have a suitable one that wouldn’t be necessary) so if you think you will move again in an year or two then it might not be such a cost effective method.
A heater does exactly that… it uses electrical energy to create heat energy. All the heat you get comes from electricity.
My understanding(as a non-american who has never had an american “air conditioner”) is that the aircons in japan are what americans call heat pumps. Through a compression/decompression cycle with a phase change they move heat from one place to another, even overcoming a temperature differential. This process doesn’t require creating heat from energy(though there is some created in the cycle due to inefficiences), you’re just making cold air outside colder to make your room warmer.
I know for sure that when we used the floor heater to heat our living room it was way worse(energywise) than using the aircon. The only thing worth considering is that using the aircon in heating mode does dry the room up a fair bit.
A bitcoin mining rig might be your most cost efficient heat source. The problem is that it is hard do adjust the heat output
The most cost-efficient is to not heat the whole room but to only heat your body – i.e. electric blankets, kotatsu etc.
Any electric heater is by definition 100% efficient (any waste electricity is… heat), but electricity is expensive.
If you want to heat the whole room, kerosene will be cheaper than electricity, but watch out for the dangers (CO buildup, fire hazard)
Well, I dunno what it costs but I know back home my sister didn’t have central air and used a tiny little ceramic heater to warm whatever room she was in. She’d crank that mother fucker all the way up and it would be like an oven wherever she was.
I’m join… But I think the real question is which energy is most cheap in Japan kerosene or electric? Someone know the rate KW/¥???
こたつ
Cheapest is the kerosene heaters, but they can kill you with carbon monoxide and you need to transport and store the kerosene.
I use the oil filled heaters, which are basically plug in radiators (not sure if Americans use that word?) because they don’t get too hot to touch so are safe for kids and heat whole rooms very well. Supposedly they are cost-effective, but if you want them to heat the house you have to ramp up the wattage (it’s adjustable) and the thermostat level (I think they base their yen per hour price claims on the lowest settings).
Also having a humidifier running helps.
A wood stove, assuming you have access to wood you can burn. (Seriously, I plan to install one in my next house.)
If you are looking at *electric* heaters then aircons (aka “heat pumps”) are by far the most efficient way to turn electricity into cool or hot air. Much more so than the cheaper “plug into the wall” type heaters.