Daimaichi House

While in Kyoto, we stayed at a two story house called the "Daimaichi House". The house is rented out to foreigners by a French Company, Florence found the place on the web. Like everything in Japan, the prices were very high, but the facility was excellent and the French nationals running the place were very helpful.

One of the reasons I like travelling in Asia is that it is like a trip into the future. All of the Asian countries have higher population densities than the US, so how they look now is how the US will be in the future. Taiwan and Japan have basically stopped growing population wise. But the US still has more than replacement births and is still open for immigration(legal and illegal). And with the price of gasoline going nowhere but up, the US will become more urban. Whether the US cities approach the densities of Japan/Taiwan cities, I don't know but the US densities are going nowhere but up.

So when densities are high, space usage has to be efficient. In Kyoto at the Daimaichi there were lots of space and energy efficiencies that will soon becoming to a house near you. Here are some of the usages that I liked at the Daimaichi House.

The stairs to the second floor we the steepest I've ever seen and the bathroom was under the stairs on the first floor, bedrooms on the second floor. Going to the bathroom in the middle of the night could be dangerous.

That bathroom toilet on the first floor incorporates a small handwashing sink that activates when you flush the toilet. A cylinder of carbon in the sink absorbs smells(I think).

The door to bathroom doesn't use a full frame door jam but only a close fitting door and a small flange of metal to close the door at the correct swing.

There is no central heating but each room has it's own heater and control.

The front door lock is cleverly dual purposed with the chain lock built into the dead bolt lock.

And finally, the lighting was a three stage fluorescence fixture.

low

medium

high

And hot water came from a "On Demand" heater, not an inefficient hot water tank  heater. Separate water heaters for the kitchen and the bathroom.

It was all these small details that made the house different from an American house. There are lots of energy efficiencies out there already in use in Japan.