Surviving Winter
Easy steps to stay warm and save energy
In general the rule is to rely on electrical appliances as little as possible. If you resist artificial heating you may find you will acclimatise to the temperature change more easily (same for summer). Some heating sources can be dangerous – there are risks of fires and burns. Kerosene heaters have been linked with cancer, and people have died after falling asleep with gas burners on. ALWAYS remember to keep one window or door slightly open to allow for fresh air to enter your room if you are using appliances that require this. Be careful about what you inhale! Other tips are as follows:
Shrinkwrapping windows
the collected wisdom of ecosig shiverers and shrinkwrappers
"I lived in a student house with no heating and single glazed windows (a bit like Japan) Thing is though in England they sell "thicker" than normal cling film at the do-it-all shops designed for windows. It also comes in bigger sheets. But I used cling film on the smaller windows and that worked, it is a bit of a pain though. Here is what you do. The window frame should sick out so tape the cling film to that (you should have about an inch gap between the window and clingfilm. Make sure there are no holes (very important for the next bit). Take a hair dryer and "dry" the window (you might get some strange looks - we did.) This makes the cling film smaller and tighter (ie there are no wrinkles) so you can see through it. Maybe you can get the bigger sheets somewhere in Japan - I am not sure. The idea is it works as insulation (like double glazing) the air trapped between the glass and the cling film is the insulator, this is why it needs to be air tight. So if it traps hot air in winter it probably traps cold air in the summer (when you air con is on). To remove you just tear it off, it is difficult to remove and then reuse (I would not use it to cover food as it will probably be covered in germs.) If possible I would try to get stuff designed for windows as it will probably last longer and it won't tear so easily. I can't do it at my place as the windows are too big and I won't be able to get into the garden. At the moment I just close the curtains as soon as is it gets dark to keep heat in and in the days time I leave the curtains open as it is very sunny and heat from the sun gets trapped in my apartment."
"It's not uncommon for people in the Northern US to wrap windows in the winter to reduce heat loss. In fact, there are special kits you can buy for just that thing. It is basically a specialized kind of film like saran wrap. You use a blow dryer to shrink it tight. A company called 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing) makes a popular brand. It does do a lot in the way of insulation, but the stuff itself may not be very environmentally friendly. If you want to know more about it, I'd look on the 3M website."
"The combination with kerosene heating could be deadly if you seal your house too well. If you just saran wrap the glass panes and not the frame you can still get improved insulation without impeding airflow. Of course electric heating is not a problem. Anything that reduces convection (less air flow), conduction (minimize metal bridging outside and inside air, therefore aluminum foil should not be used), and radiation (more thickness between outside and inside air) will keep you house warmer without using precious fossil fuels. I will give you a graphic demonstration I had last Saturday as evidence that it works. It was the first day I saw frost in Maebashi and I was doing a workout on my rowing machine. After 1 hour there was considerable condensation on the cold glass EXCEPT where I had put up some test pieces of saran wrap. That little bit of extra material and the air trapped between it and the glass was enough to keep the surface of the saran warm enough to stop condensation."
"This year in November when it started getting a little cold I went to the Do It Yourself place and asked what I could do to keep my apt warm and they directed me to an area with bubble wrap. I thought it was a little silly but I did it anyway and it's made such a difference. Or they have this other stuff that I used last year which is like saran wrap but you put a hair dryer to it and it kinda shrink wraps your window and it worked but not as well as the bubble wrap. Inside my apartment is actually warmer than it is outside which never happened last year unless I used a heater. I highly recommend it. Also get some stuff to seal the windows and doors tighter or cover the openings because you'll find that a lot of air comes in those tiny cracks."
"I have typhoon shutters over two sliding doors and I find if I pull them down at night it helps to keep my apartment warmer. Someone also told me that they had a caravan/camper and in winter they used to put polystryene boxes over the windows from the inside to insulate the house. For large windows this will not be an option but for smaller windows I think it would work. Try your local supermarket for the boxes."
Some good advice about heaters
"A heating element which burns its fuel at source is most efficient. Electrical heating is VERY inefficient. Electrical heat comes from (usually) burning some fossil fuel at a distant location, heating something up to make mechanical energy, using the mechanical energy to make electricity and then pumping the electricity over long distances to our homes. Then if we turn around and put the electricity back into heating form it is all very redundant and wasteful. I forget where I read this, but it makes sense for me from the limited stuff I learned in two years of physics at school.
So, I decided the best thing was to look for a kerosene or gas heater. Overall, I am told the gas heaters are most efficient and stink the least. However, my apartment wasn`t plumbed with enough tubing for me to get one. If your apartment is make sure to check if you have LP gas or city gas...each heater is designed to run on a specific kind.
But the gas ones are clean burning so while you don`t smell them they are still deadly. I guess every hour you should change the air. Every year people die from burning the gas heaters after falling asleep. Yick.
But don`t dispair, there`s another idea. You can whack out hachi mon and get a kerosene heater with a vent. A guy can come to your apartment and drill a hole in the wall. It took five minutes because my apartment is basically made out of compressed cardboard from what I could see. There was barely any insulation at all in the walls. Ughh.
Anyways. Now we can burn our kerosene heater and it hardly stinks at all. If we run it for less than 3 or 4 hours we don`t even change the air. So it`s effecient in the sense it burns the fuel on site and it vents the fumes outside. But it cost us a fair amount of money. And I skipped asking my city hall for permission to put a hole in the wall. (I think they would have said no and told me to run the air-con, which I know is old and runs off of electricity.)
Of course this stuff is all just temporary until we all get to build our solar homes which heat off of the sun`s rays. I`ve seen some really cool ideas lately about using solar energy to heat up water and then run it through concrete flooring with tiles on top to create homes heated from the floor up. Then in the summer time you run water through tubes drilled up to 30 meters deep in the earth (about 15 degrees) and pump it through the floors using a pump hooked up to a PV source for cooling. Pretty clever, no?"
