The fun Christmas season of December is approaching. Japan is about to enter the winter season in earnest.
“Warm even in winter” is the most important factor in assessing the value of a home.
However, for foreigners, Japanese housing has the problem that it is very cold in winter. It feels cold not only for foreigners from hot Southeast Asian countries but also for foreigners from cold regions such as North America and Europe.
I spent my high school days in Hokkaido, and although it was cold outdoors, the inside of the building didn’t feel as cold as Osaka or Tokyo.
Most Japanese rental apartments do not contain the heat insulating material that should be put in the interior floor, wall, and ceiling in order to reduce the construction cost. The rental apartments where heat insulating materials are firmly installed on the floor, walls, and ceiling are very different from rental apartments where heat insulating materials are not installed. The comfort of living differs entirely.
Most of the general owners and lessees do not have any knowledge about this. In fact, there are many cases where construction companies skip the work process of adding heat insulating material to make construction easier.
In the case of detached houses, there are many properties where the underfloor on the first floor is left as soil. The old houses were still soil, and wooden houses were built on the soil. Therefore, turning the floorboard is the same as the soil like the field.
You can prevent the cold to some extent by pouring concrete over this soil to make it a “solid foundation”. At the cost of construction, the underfloor of a wooden detached house can be made of concrete.
But concrete is still cold in winter (and hot in summer).
Since the building is also made of concrete, when the concrete gets cold in winter, the room inevitably gets cold. Depending on the property, it might be warmer outside the apartment building in winter than inside the apartment building. This is because the concrete of the building’s frame gets cold.
Therefore, what is important is a heater that heats the air such as an air conditioner and “bedding”.
Please check the followings in order to make your bedding warmer for Japanese winter.
(1) Double the comforters.
The comforters we provide are ① one summer comforter and ➁ one spring / autumn comforter. Please snap ①summer comforter on ➁spring/ autumn comforter. Then a winter comforter could be made. After doubling it, put the comforter cover on it in one piece.
How to set up → 冬のふとん – 外国人駐在員・外交官向け 高級住宅 (dios.co.jp)
(2) Add a blanket to the comforter (VITGROE)
VITGRÖE ヴィートグローエ 毛布, ホワイト, 150×200 cm – IKEA
(3) Change the comforter cover from sheets to a blanket cover
KRANSSALVIA クランサルヴィア 掛け布団カバー＆枕カバー（枕カバー2枚）, ホワイト, 200×200/50×60 cm – IKEA
(4) Add another blanket to the mattress
(5) Change the blanket of the mattress to an “electric blanket”
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My recommendation is No.(5) electric blanket.
I love this electric blanket.
I have never felt that an electric blanket is bad for my body.
It is warm and makes people to sleep longer. The reason why people can’t sleep in winter is often due to the cold temperature. You can sleep well if the bedding is warm.
If you use an electric blanket, you will not want to get out of bed because it is warm and too comfortable inside the bed.
With an electric blanket, the winter bedding problem is completely solved.
We drove on the narrow and rough road of Mt. Yoshino and visited Tokuda Meiboku Co., Ltd in Kurotaki Village. When I called Tokuda office in advance, the lady staff kindly accepted our visit, saying, “Yes, please, please come on !.”
I think most of the people who visited Tokuda Meiboku will be surprised by the size and quality of the wood, but I was different from other people. Rather than the splendor of the wood, the natural wood, which is said to have 30,000 different shapes, was properly labeled with numbers in the warehouse and kept in order. I was impressed by the fact that Mr. Tokuda has a very high management ability. I think that the internal control of accounting is also excellent.
I completely liked it. Since I came all the long way to the mountains, I bought as much of this company’s trees as I could put in my car. I would like to make a dining table or shelf using these wood. Tokuda Meiboku Co.Ltd is a forestry, so they will cut good quality cedar and cypress from the mountains. What you do with the tree depends on the creativity of the buyer. It seems that there are also artists. Depending on the creativity of the purchaser, I think that the range of use of natural wood, “how to utilize it,” has great potential.
