Comments on: Are Japanese Houses Worthless?

By: Moogiechan

Moogiechan — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 20:37:00 +0000

I wonder if the energy crunch from having all the reactors down will make people more interested in insulation and energy efficiency in general in homes.

On a tangent, I know someone whose family home in Japan is on leased land and must be torn down and completely removed when they stop leasing the land.

By: brainburst

brainburst — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 01:30:00 +0000

Korean homes are built better with much better insulation.

By: brainburst

brainburst — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 01:27:00 +0000

I have been coming back and forth over the last ten years with my wife who is native Japanese, and owns her own home. Japanese construction is shoddy. Period. Having dealt first hand with a number of “Home Reform” businesses first hand, i have experienced rapacious prices ,shoddy workmanship and materials. The practices you refer to are not common place at all, reserved for bespoke construction for the very rich.

By: hilldomain

hilldomain — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 05:22:00 +0000

No not true- a used house is cheaper than a new condo or even the cheaper than a used condo in the same area and you own the land. Condos are way over priced right now. Which is the same problem they had in the 80′s – too many overpriced condos that ended up inflating the market. People dont buy houses because they dont want to maintain them. They dont buy used houses because of fear of earthquakes. But a larger percentage of Japanese people own their own home in the country than the city of course.

Which brings me to my next point. Houses aren’t built to last for a few reasons. 1. the codes change and especially the ones for earthquake resistance. 2. builders build to code which is like getting a grade of C – they should build beyond the codes but its cost prohibitive. Japanese houses even new ones are cheap compared to America. Try buying a house in one of the 5 burrows of NYC for $600,000. in a safe neighborhood with schools. Want to cut that number in half? buy a house ore than 25 years old. There is no tie to Shintoism or any other religious reason. Buildings used to be built to last back in the day and maintained. One reason I believe is the lack of quality craftsmen as opposed to in the past and the change from traditional building to more western, engineered product based building- you need to have a specialist in each area to install each component.

By: hijoesan

hijoesan — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 21:55:00 +0000

Theyre not crappily designed or constructed. Watch a house go up. They are put together like a piece of furniture; dovetail and mortise & tennon joints, lots of cyprus and cedar (nice smell!), lots of cement (exterior walls) and tile (roof). Our house was about 20 yrs old, & yeah, walls were insulated but not attic so I insulated that myself. Yeah, single pane windows, but they have real metal sliding shutters and the climate isnt like it is here in Wisc.
We moved back to the US and had a house built. Bam bam bam went the nail guns, squirt out a bunch of Liquid Nails, lots of chip board, vinyl siding & windows, and spindly 2x4s, all the sudden there is a house!

By: Caldoria

Caldoria — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 04:09:00 +0000

I have long wondered if there was a tie to shinto. I understand shrines
may be rebuilt relatively frequently. Impurity is a big deal. Often
religion and tradition has a good reason for things, even if the
original understanding was very unclear. Impurity can be in reality
truly bad things–the things that build up in houses over time. We in
the west aren’t as paranoid about this stuff, but we are becoming more
so with microscopes and understanding.

It is problematic in practice, though. A new house costs a lot of
money!! And it is wasteful. I have read that the Japanese are the same when it comes to other products, like appliances. It seems for good or bad this is a way to
“Stimulate the economy”.

While foreign isn’t always bad, I don’t, even with my great respect for Japanese culture respect all aspects of it.