How do Europeans heat their homes??

[mdwyer]

I know in Japan they use Kerosine space heaters, and use inline gas water heaters. Heating water only when it's needed and only heating the space they are in.

I spent a week in a traditional Japanese apartment in January. There was an electric heat pump for heating and cooling, backed up with a portable kerosene heater. The only heated water was a gas in-line demand heater in the kitchen. The bath tub had its own gas heater. There didn't seem to be any insulation, there, so keeping warm in your own place was interesting.

You got the most heat from an electric heater under the short little table shrouded with blankets -- the kotatsu? That was cozy!

[DarkWing]

I had the right side of my face burned off as a child by a "in the floor" central heater I fell on and could not push myself up from. (Luckily, I was so small I don't remember it.) They didn't have real ways to treat burns back then, so my mother kept me on her lap with a cloth soaked with some sort of salve on it. They said they could see into my mouth, see my teeth, with my lips closed. The scars have healed well, they have very little on the surface anymore. They only show up when I get tired, or ticked. People usually think I've fallen asleep on my hands. I tell people "I had half my face burned off as a child, that's why I'm so ugly, what's your excuse???" if they get on my nerves. (The scars are showing by this time.)

Anyway. LP fired furnace, one big duct in the middle of the house, in the floor, at the juction of two hallways. Long time ago, in the late 60's. Lot's of houses here in Alabama didn't even have that much.

DarkWing
D.W.
#0147:bwgr::bwgr:

[mrtew]

Wow I never appreciated central heat before so much in my life!