"Why Are Japanese Homes Disposable?"

[Coligny]

Also, I wall socket supposed to be 1500W rated, pretty sure no matter the number of plugs provided...

While 2 distinct socket should give 2x 1500 W... at least with the english ring wiring system... now with the japanese daisy chaining crap... not so sure...

(bit fuzzy for me here... while the ring concept makes sense, it's a recipe for DIY disaster... much prefer a star distribution scheme)

[Coligny]

Anyone knows some good home centers in the Kinki area?

Not helping d00d...

not helping at all...

(try amazon too... unbelievable the stuff they have... I buy all my screws there now instead of driving to 5 different store to find the good length/size/thread/material)

[Russell]

Actually, I have been trying various online shops for buying power tools, which often have lower prices than the physical shops.

Good experiences up to now: Dogudoraku and Homemaking.

Reasonable but not perfect experiences (a couple of years ago):
Homerz.

But expect delivery times much longer than Amazon (and prices typically lower).

[Wage Slave]

However the builders did skimp a bit on the number of outlets, especially upstairs.

It is easy and cheap to increase to number of sockets at each outlet to 3. Not perfect of course, but it might help.

I've seen those before, makes sense...but I'm guessing what Yanpa wants is the actual outlets in different locations.

Bingo.

I did realise that but you can at least reduce the number of splitters a bit for little money. Adding outlets in different locations will mean a lot more work/expense and may well mean ducting on the walls - not at all keen personally.

[Wage Slave]

Also, I wall socket supposed to be 1500W rated, pretty sure no matter the number of plugs provided...

While 2 distinct socket should give 2x 1500 W... at least with the english ring wiring system... now with the japanese daisy chaining crap... not so sure...

(bit fuzzy for me here... while the ring concept makes sense, it's a recipe for DIY disaster... much prefer a star distribution scheme)

Not really. More sockets might be rated at 1500W but the circuit as a whole is only 2000W no matter how many and what type of sockets are fitted. Typically there will be some lights as well so you haven't really even got 2000W available for power. The only way to get more is to fit another breaker and run a new cable from the distro box.

Ring wiring doesn't change that. You are always limited by the value of the fuse or the breaker no matter connecting hardware you connect to the circuit. Not a huge fan of ring wiring. It was only invented in response to cable shortage after the war and although its a clever way to save on cable it relies on far too long daisy chains for my liking. Separating lighting and power and having different value fuses/breakers makes some sense though and that's kind of a side effect of creating the loopy daisy chains. And yeah, someone who doesn't understand comes along and spurs off an electric fire or something with the same diameter cable as he can see being used and then things get hot with nothing much to stop it.

[Coligny]

Sidenote, I think it's a 1500w peak with 1200w continuous.
For a 20A fuse 2 sockets of 1200w sounds reasonable.
Also, in the bunker lights and former aircon fans are on their own fuse.

[Wage Slave]

Sidenote, I think it's a 1500w peak with 1200w continuous.
For a 20A fuse 2 sockets of 1200w sounds reasonable.
Also, in the bunker lights and former aircon fans are on their own fuse.

That sounds right and would explain why I can't get a kettle over a measly 1200W. There is of course no problem with having more sockets and plugging in lots of small appliances in different locations.

Ditto aircons and microwave. Lights and power for one section of the house are all on the same breaker though. I thought that was standard for radial wiring? 14 breakers in all - which is far more than an English installation of the same size and age would use.

[Coligny]

Same for heaters, before Delonghi had 1500W models, but they were recalled and safety in plug breaker added... These days I don't remember seeing more than 1200w...

[Coligny]

Timer switch on amazon:

http://goo.gl/hhjWPo

With 15/30/90 min selector, maybe more for cat shitter/kitchen fan...

But other models available in them related items list...

[Coligny]

Pretty smart shitter light and fan switch:

http://goo.gl/2Oporg
When you shut down the light the fan run for 3 minutes... (Useless if you are married to someone who forget to shutdown the light)

Anyone to state that amazon.co.jp doesn't deliver overnight to Sudan or are we good ?

[Wage Slave]

Timer switch on amazon:

http://goo.gl/hhjWPo

With 15/30/90 min selector, maybe more for cat shitter/kitchen fan...

But other models available in them related items list...

That's the one I meant. Like for like replacement with your exiting switches, well made, silent, long lasting and any moron immediately understands how they work. I fitted one recently in place of the simple on/off switch for the toilet fan the electrician kindly supplied as part of his "job". A combo light and fan delay might have been even better but I couldn't be arsed with the rejigging and sometimes you want the fan for longer than 3 minutes but not the light at all.

I also recently changed the old clockwork bathroom fan timer switch for the 15/30/45 minutes model and even my lot can understand it and don't start getting violent/angry with it.

[Russell]

Thanks Hammer, I'll keep that in mind.

I am currently in the process of doing some rewiring. Lights in staircase and lights in 2nd floor hallway are in different circuits. Trying to unify them, so that I can switch off the lights at the second floor from the bottom of the stairs (damn kids, for always keeping the 2nd floor lights on).

Two circuits means two power sources, which can conflict, so I must take out one. One circuit has two switches, and one has three. I roughly mapped out which wires go where; now I only have to locate the power sources.

Coligny's comment is well taken. Even though 100V is fairly safe and there will almost certainly be an earth leakage detector be extremely careful. Never assume something is not live. Always test it. The following is for your consideration and only represents my inexpert thoughts on the problem.

Are you going to wire it so that the lights upstairs can be turned off or on from either downstairs or up? If so, it seems to me you would need to get two, three way switches and fit one with the existing switches downstairs and one with the switches upstairs. As you said you will need to work out at which switch the supply enters the hall light circuit upstairs and disconnect that supply at the switch (and make safe of course). Then run a twin core cable between the two traveller connections of the new downstairs switch to the two on the new upstairs switch. Then connect the common of the upstairs 3 way switch to the hot side of an upstairs switch and finally connect the common of the downstairs switch to the hot side of any downstairs switch.

Now all the lights will be on one breaker and you will be able to turn off all the lights from downstairs with your new switch. If the kids then want to turn them back on they will either have to do so from downstairs or flick the new switch upstairs and then upstairs will work normally again. If there is anything in the way of sockets or other lights in the circuit after the hall lights then they will now be on the new circuit too which might might not be convenient and might start to raise questions about capacity. You could work out which switch has the supply running off to the rest of the circuit disconnect it and connect it to the supply you disconnected earlier. You might well get lucky and find that the hall lights are on their own string and don't affect anything else or the switch with supply in is also the host for supply out to the non hall light bits of the circuit. In that case just connect the disconnected supply to the supply out.

All that assumes that the hall light switches have been wired in a little string that might or might not then go off to feed other things. If not then it gets more difficult. Not in theory, but in practice.

Wage Slave, the problem is a bit more difficult.

There are two circuits (fortunately on the same breaker), one for the lights in the staircase, and one for the lights on the 2nd floor hall.

The staircase circuit has two switches, one at the bottom and one at the top.

The 2nd floor hall circuit has three switches, one at the top of the staircase, and two more in the hall.

So there is one point where wires of the two circuits are near to each other: at the switches at the top of the staircase.

The goal is to unify the two switches at the top of the stairs into one, and get all lights to be switched by any of four resulting switches.

This weekend I pulled it off by carefully labeling my wires, drawing up the circuit schemes, check, recheck, and laying additional cables.

Turns out I only needed to get myself one more cable behind the wall, since the original installation company kind of prepared for a possible unification of the circuits by already laying additional cables in advance. Most rewiring could be done in the sockets, and I needed to take out two 3-way switches, and add a 4-way switch. Fortunately I had access to the space under the roof, where all cables come together.

Important for this job was to take my time, not be in any hurry, working systematically, and doing everything extremely carefully. No, I didn't get electrocuted (but I did get electrified).

[Samurai_Jerk]

Japan's disposable home culture is an environmental and financial headache

It's time to move to a new city. You look at houses you might want to buy and finally settle on one that's in the right location and appeals to you. But in Japan, that appeal hardly matters: the average home only lasts for 30 years.

That's because, as the economists Richard Koo and Masaya Sasaki show in a report, 15 years after being built the average house is worth nothing. "It's a direct contrast to, for example, western Europe, where many of the most desirable buildings are 200 years old," notes Alastair Townsend, a British architect living and working in Japan. "It's not environmentally sustainable but also not financially sustainable. People work very hard to pay off a mortgage that's ultimately worth zero." ...

Jiro Yoshida, an assistant professor of business at Pennsylvania State University, specialises in the Japanese housing market. "Most structures in, for example, Tokyo were destroyed, so everything had to be rebuilt from scratch," he says. "The new buildings weren't very good, so after a while many had to be knocked down." ...

The irony is that unlike their post-war hastily erected forerunners, today's homes are sometimes well built and could easily last for several more decades. "Japan has a very efficient and sustainable way of mass-producing timber homes that are very good and can even withstand earthquakes,"

Another claim about the high quality of timber homes in Japan.

[Wage Slave]

Judging by the building we had done I would say that the foundations (Massive steel reinforced formed concrete thing on a bed of hard core) and the timber frame were indeed high quality and produced efficiently. They can do concrete all right and the main frame appeared on site with lovely big mortise and tenon joints pre cut to less than a millimetre tolerance. The carpenters were fast and and did very nice work.

The weakness was in the quality of the materials used to clad and finish and the fact the electrician was a corner cutting wanker. Oh, and the window frames are all aluminium. They did though manage to find some double glazed specimens at my insistence and although the insulation isn't as good as I would like it is good enough - 10cm or so of bagged rock-woolish stuff all round. I wanted more in the roof but lost that one to the wife's economising. It's not as if its that cold here in winter.

This sweeping statement annoys me:

People work very hard to pay off a mortgage that's ultimately worth zero.

Untrue. The house may have no market value but the land most certainly does. The house, if it isn't a real cheapie, with reasonable maintenance, will be still perfectly livable and can certainly be put on the rental market even if its resale value is negligible.

Sekisui House tell me that the structure of their houses is designed to last at least 70 to 80 years. Looking at the basic construction after 25, that seems perfectly reasonable to me. It will probably last even longer if cared for.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Judging by the building we had done I would say that the foundations (Massive steel reinforced formed concrete thing on a bed of hard core) and the timber frame were indeed high quality and produced efficiently.

The weakness was in the quality of the materials used to clad and finish

That's what I figured.

[matsuki]

"It's not environmentally sustainable

But they are called "ECO" homes?!

Judging by the building we had done I would say that the foundations (Massive steel reinforced formed concrete thing on a bed of hard core) and the timber frame were indeed high quality and produced efficiently.

The weakness was in the quality of the materials used to clad and finish

That's what I figured.

Yep, the aluminum frames heatsinks for windows are just China level retarded. The sheetrock they use is too thin and what do they have against paint....fucking wallpaper everywhere!! Aluminum siding and subway tiles look like shit for exterior finishes. Even when they use decent stuff, the materials/labor is insanity level expensive. The quote I got before I tiled my entire Kitchen was for 350,000...I did it for less than 25,000 in materials and did the work myself.

[Wage Slave]

"It's not environmentally sustainable

But they are called "ECO" homes?!

Judging by the building we had done I would say that the foundations (Massive steel reinforced formed concrete thing on a bed of hard core) and the timber frame were indeed high quality and produced efficiently.

The weakness was in the quality of the materials used to clad and finish

That's what I figured.

what do they have against paint....fucking wallpaper everywhere!!

Agreed 100% on paint. It has got a bit better but I was deeply shocked when I saw what little was available in my local Komeri 8 years ago. And insanely expensive with it. Nippon Paint must have some seriously influential connections.

And yeah the wallpaper. We were given a huge book to choose from - Every single one was a shade of white and there were endless minor variations of the same dust collecting textures. I asked if I could just have lining paper suitable for painting and they thought I was crazy. In the end I just bought something plain and one day, if I can afford the paint, I'll paint it.

And then there's the plastic is better than paint policy. In a way a lot of paint is just a kind very thin layer of plastic I suppose but it can be stripped or painted over. Redecorated! What a weird idea! No, make everything or finish everything in plastic that yellows over time or peels off in the end leaving no choice but to rebuild.

[matsuki]

"It's not environmentally sustainable

But they are called "ECO" homes?!

Judging by the building we had done I would say that the foundations (Massive steel reinforced formed concrete thing on a bed of hard core) and the timber frame were indeed high quality and produced efficiently.

The weakness was in the quality of the materials used to clad and finish

That's what I figured.

what do they have against paint....fucking wallpaper everywhere!!

Agreed 100% on paint. It has got a bit better but I was deeply shocked when I saw what little was available in my local Komeri 8 years ago. And insanely expensive with it. Nippon Paint must have some seriously influential connections.

And yeah the wallpaper. We were given a huge book to choose from - Every single one was a shade of white and there were endless minor variations of the same dust collecting textures. I asked if I could just have lining paper suitable for painting and they thought I was crazy. In the end I just bought something plain and one day, if I can afford the paint, I'll paint it.

The ideal way to build a quality home here seems to be to have a team do the excavations,frame your place, and then sub out all the rest with materials and methods of your choosing. (and doing what work you can yourself) Hell, if you want a concrete box, you can probably save up to 60% of what they normally charge.

And then there's the plastic is better than paint policy. In a way a lot of paint is just a kind very thin layer of plastic I suppose but it can be stripped or painted over. Redecorated! What a weird idea! No, make everything or finish everything in plastic that yellows over time or peels off in the end leaving no choice but to rebuild.

The plastic walls in the shower rooms....they don't even use silicone in between the panels!! Wouldn't mind it so much if they were reasonably priced but they cost a fortune. Cheaper (and bett looking IMO) to tile that shit.

[Samurai_Jerk]

The plastic walls in the shower rooms....they don't even use silicone in between the panels!! Wouldn't mind it so much if they were reasonably priced but they cost a fortune. Cheaper (and bett looking IMO) to tile that shit.

Plus, as I learned the hard way, if you punch them in a rage because your girlfriend is being a cunt and it's her or the wall, they will break and it's not cheap to replace the whole panel. I guess it's better than getting hanged for murder though. Picking fiberglass out of my knuckles wasn't very fun by the way.

[Mike Oxlong]

The plastic walls in the shower rooms....they don't even use silicone in between the panels!! Wouldn't mind it so much if they were reasonably priced but they cost a fortune. Cheaper (and bett looking IMO) to tile that shit.

Plus, as I learned the hard way, if you punch them in a rage because your girlfriend is being a cunt and it's her or the wall, they will break and it's not cheap to replace the whole panel. I guess it's better than getting hanged for murder though. Picking fiberglass out of my knuckles wasn't very fun by the way.

Girlfriends and rice-cookers have been known to put holes in walls as well.

[wuchan]

"It's not environmentally sustainable

But they are called "ECO" homes?!

Judging by the building we had done I would say that the foundations (Massive steel reinforced formed concrete thing on a bed of hard core) and the timber frame were indeed high quality and produced efficiently.

The weakness was in the quality of the materials used to clad and finish

That's what I figured.

what do they have against paint....fucking wallpaper everywhere!!

Agreed 100% on paint. It has got a bit better but I was deeply shocked when I saw what little was available in my local Komeri 8 years ago. And insanely expensive with it. Nippon Paint must have some seriously influential connections.

And yeah the wallpaper. We were given a huge book to choose from - Every single one was a shade of white and there were endless minor variations of the same dust collecting textures. I asked if I could just have lining paper suitable for painting and they thought I was crazy. In the end I just bought something plain and one day, if I can afford the paint, I'll paint it.

The ideal way to build a quality home here seems to be to have a team do the excavations,frame your place, and then sub out all the rest with materials and methods of your choosing. (and doing what work you can yourself) Hell, if you want a concrete box, you can probably save up to 60% of what they normally charge.

And then there's the plastic is better than paint policy. In a way a lot of paint is just a kind very thin layer of plastic I suppose but it can be stripped or painted over. Redecorated! What a weird idea! No, make everything or finish everything in plastic that yellows over time or peels off in the end leaving no choice but to rebuild.

The plastic walls in the shower rooms....they don't even use silicone in between the panels!! Wouldn't mind it so much if they were reasonably priced but they cost a fortune. Cheaper (and bett looking IMO) to tile that shit.

None of the big house builders will ever let you do anything yourself. I tried. and tried... and tried.... All met with dame.

In the end the tile work was shit, some of the laminate is already coming off the floor in one of the bedrooms, the cats destroyed the wallpaper, there is a yellow substance leaking from the seams in the wallpaper on the celings (we don't smoke), the aircon smells like mold...... the house is five years old. Kinda strange that sumitomo showed up exactly on the day of our fifth year and offered to "renew" the house, almost like it was planed. We told them to fuck off, they were very surprised. (like OMG, youz not gona pay us more moneyz? everyone else does!)

Next year I'm going to strip all the walpaper and paint and maybe in a year or two I'll put hardwood floors upstairs.

[wuchan]

The whole planning process was a total fucking battle. Our first architect spoke English, built houses in the USA and totally loved all our ideas. Two months later we were told "he was moved" and we were presented with a new cunt who had redone the entire plan without consulting us. Six months of eight hour weekly meetings at their office followed. In the end we figured out that the first guy got fired because he didn't try to force all the junk we didn't need or want.
Rubber floors in the kitchen and bathrooms? Fuck no, tile.
A trap door in the middle of the kitchen? Fuck that.
Particle board windowsills? Um.. Rain? Nah, not a problem because Japanese people don't leave the windows open.
Gas for cooking and water? No one has that in Japan!
What's all that stuff out side on the plan? We are going to spend half the budget on landscaping! Um, we live on a farm and have all the equipment to do it ourselves. But how will you know where to put the plants?
and the list goes on.

In the end Mrs. Wu told the cunt that we were more than happy to walk away and terminate the contract due to their unwillingness to build our house our way. This was after five or so requests for a new "architect". Magically the cunt stopped trying to change things and stopped talking to me all together. He just stomped around like a baby for the rest of the project.

[Wage Slave]

I have to admit I quite like the underfloor storage in the kitchen. And it doubles as an access hatch to the underfloor area. I am wondering about floor tiles for my kitchen floor. Did you go with the hard vinyl ones or the glazed earthenware type with grout?

[Coligny]

The plastic walls in the shower rooms....they don't even use silicone in between the panels!! Wouldn't mind it so much if they were reasonably priced but they cost a fortune. Cheaper (and bett looking IMO) to tile that shit.

Plus, as I learned the hard way, if you punch them in a rage because your girlfriend is being a cunt and it's her or the wall, they will break and it's not cheap to replace the whole panel. I guess it's better than getting hanged for murder though. Picking fiberglass out of my knuckles wasn't very fun by the way.

The "unit bathroom" comes from a good idea... providing a contained humidity bubble that can be vented out with damaging the rest of the paperwork... hmmm... house...
Like every good idea, in japan some genius turned it into a "we japanese" shitfest... Corrugated iron, fiberglass... that's good for the tinyhouse crowd/planes/cars and trailers... not real homes...


AS FOR THE PAINT:
I noticed that you really need to look carefully, all my hardware stores have litterally dozens of "KINDS" of paints, for in/out/rust/wood/tint/oil/varnish/sun/waterprotection/waterproofing(not the same), expected lifespan, add this with tint/coloring/texture and solvent base AND the container type, then you have all the possible price possible.

If you don't want wallpaper, go with shikui, that's a supposedly traditionnal mold proof paste that can be painted/tinted a bit fragile... like most wall outside of padded cells are...

[wuchan]

I have to admit I quite like the underfloor storage in the kitchen. And it doubles as an access hatch to the underfloor area. I am wondering about floor tiles for my kitchen floor. Did you go with the hard vinyl ones or the glazed earthenware type with grout?

we used outdoor creamic tiles with grout. They thought I was nuts until they saw them in the house.

[Coligny]

we used outdoor creamic tiles with grout.

ermargerd, fureign barbarian...

[matsuki]

None of the big house builders will ever let you do anything yourself. I tried. and tried... and tried.... All met with dame.

My log besssssso in the inaka...since I'm not there full time, once I get the plans and area ready, I'm going to attempt to have the first story done in concrete. No finishing or anything like that, just basically a concrete box with a few openings for windows/doors/plumbing/elec. Will make my life sooo much easier and the build much quicker. I have a cousin who works in construction there so he's my lead so far but I have to imagine the concrete people are their own teams that get subbed out all the time (any suggestions Taro?) so the only thing out of the ordinary will be me ordering them instead of a company. Will have to sub out the electrical as well but the pluming and all the other fun stuff...going at that on my own.

The whole planning process was a total fucking battle. Our first architect spoke English, built houses in the USA and totally loved all our ideas. Two months later we were told "he was moved" and we were presented with a new cunt who had redone the entire plan without consulting us. Six months of eight hour weekly meetings at their office followed. In the end we figured out that the first guy got fired because he didn't try to force all the junk we didn't need or want.
Rubber floors in the kitchen and bathrooms? Fuck no, tile.
A trap door in the middle of the kitchen? Fuck that.
Particle board windowsills? Um.. Rain? Nah, not a problem because Japanese people don't leave the windows open.
Gas for cooking and water? No one has that in Japan!
What's all that stuff out side on the plan? We are going to spend half the budget on landscaping! Um, we live on a farm and have all the equipment to do it ourselves. But how will you know where to put the plants?
and the list goes on.

In the end Mrs. Wu told the cunt that we were more than happy to walk away and terminate the contract due to their unwillingness to build our house our way. This was after five or so requests for a new "architect". Magically the cunt stopped trying to change things and stopped talking to me all together. He just stomped around like a baby for the rest of the project.

Damn....but why didn't you walk away? I can't stand any of that "I know you want this but we think you will like this better" sales BS.

[Russell]

Ahh, wall paper...

Here in my sexy home the wall paper in the bathrooms and toilets is quite good and sturdy, but in the rest of the rooms it is extremely fragile. Just make a wrong movement, and it scrapes off. I follow all members in my household 24/7 with a tube of glue to keep the place decent looking.

And wall paper on the ceilings: who the fuck could think up something like that?!?

[Coligny]

And wall paper on the ceilings: who the fuck could think up something like that?!?

The same kind of people who put carpet on the walls.
(Well, unless they have cats... Because cats love carpeted walls...)

[chibaka]

I have to admit I quite like the underfloor storage in the kitchen. And it doubles as an access hatch to the underfloor area. I am wondering about floor tiles for my kitchen floor. Did you go with the hard vinyl ones or the glazed earthenware type with grout?

we used outdoor creamic tiles with grout. They thought I was nuts until they saw them in the house.

You laid those on top of a wooden floor? I'd worry about cracking or tiles coming loose when the house does the earthquake conga......
I prefer tiles though.