All I got from a neighbor is that it was run directly into a downhill rice paddy and diverted when not needed. With all the pottery about I bet the old guys were making a lot of alcohol. The original owners over 120 years ago had 10 kids so I bet a lot of shagging and drinking was going on with no tv available.
You beat me to the edit LOL. Indoor sports and drinking was probably the only entertainment back then in this area.
I think expectations of material wealth were lower and life was simpler; harder in many ways to survive though.
Yeah I think so too. In the Genkan (entrance area) there is a place to put your shoes which is actually under the floor. There were 20 pairs of wooden clogs all about size 4 (10 year old child’s western size) Even the adults were small so I doubt their calorie intake was much either. I probably eat more than half that family did just guessing.
I just went ahead with a quote from a local guy who can source Hunter Stoves. They are a UK stove manufacturer and their product looks nice and appears good quality. I had to send an email to Woodstock advising them I wasn’t going ahead with importing one of their stoves. Their soapstone stove is a thing of beauty but because the cafe is so cold I’ve had to do this. Possibly down the track when I’m not so pressed I’ll get one for another part of the house. The stove was about $5000 and the flue, installation and taxes came to about $7000. So all up $12k for this set up. This would be half the cost back home but the cafe is freezing and I’m pushed for time to fix this issue. The guy said it will installed within 3 weeks he’s not sure which day he can do it. At the moment it’s getting cold and already snow is forecast soon.
Looking forward to the install. Will you include it here or start a new thread? It is fascinating watching your life in Japan unfold by the way
Everything I post about what I do will be here. I’ve got the installer doing something else as well that’s gonna be cool for the cafe.
Can’t wait to see it, these international stories are just fun to see how the rest of the world burns wood or adapts to do so. Save the receipts, you can have fun factoring how much heat the stove has saved you from turning on the electrical heat or did I miss that you don’t have that at all?
Here’s some photos of the renovation I did in July. Tradesman did the plumbing and electric and the specialist stuff. I did the crap jobs to lower costs.
More pics. I lowered the cielings in the living areas and insulated them and also took the floor out and fixed the joists and insulated them with foam. Then put the floorboards back down to lower costs. Only 3 days work and about $2k to get nice floors.
