The difference is that in the US and Europe, houses have built-in “climate control” measures such as air vents, more “breathing” material etc… Be careful if you attempt to make your appartment/house in Taiwan airtight, you’ll find yourself in a concrete bunker. Most important: where are your hot-water heaters (gas) located?? It seems every winter there’s a story in Taiwan of people gassing themselves over night in hermetically sealed appartments … so if you do, make sure your gas-alarms are working!! On the other hand, if your windows are anything like ours, you’ll have a hard time to really get them air-tight, it seems virtually impossible. We have a total of 15 outside-windows and doors in our house, it would be a major job to seal these off, and don’t forget the aircons, unless you’ve got central aircon … better allow the air to refresh and get some decent heating!
Kerosene heater. Fuel is cheap and easy to get, they don’t explode as gas heaters do, and you can live with the maintenance and the smell.
Forget the oil-filled thingies, They are too expensive to run, and don’t pump out all that much heat.
DEAR EXPET
DO YOU HAVE THE TEL NO OF THE WOOD LOG GUY ?
THANKS
BART DE GRAAF
Mr. He, how about this one, just saw this on yahoo auctions when looking for gas/kerosene heaters:
http://tw.f3.page.bid.yahoo.com/tw/auction/c12949134
We have an open fire-place in our house, but a thing like this one above (like a Franklin oven, all cast iron with doors you can close) is much better to actually heat a house rather than just have a nice atmosphere. Our living room/open kitchen area is quite big and an open fireplace won’t properly heat it, but this thing might! My parents have a Franklin in our holiday house back home, best heating ever! The ultimate is still a skandinavian closed stone stove/fireplace, I gave one to my sister when she built her new house, it’s even better, stores the heat for hours even after the fire has gone out!
As for logs, we have a number flying around somewhere of a guy who delivers fire logs, if I find it I’ll post it if anyone is interested. I’v so far cut & split logs myself, the recent typhoons have left us with a few fir trees toppled that are now neatly stacked in the yard … 
a lot of work though, only recommended for people with a bit of stamina and who like “menial” outdoors activities … gives me a change from my boring office job![/quote]
Hi Bart,
I dug up the name card for you, it’s a Mr. Lin, his mobile numbers are 0930530242 (English) and 0937547706, the line number is 02-28346662. The previous tennants of our house who passed the card on to us noted “NT$3500,-” on the card, but I have no idea how much wood they got for that amount … veel geluk! Xpet.
I brought a gas heater on ebay in Australia. nt dollars was about 3,000nt with postage.
Lugged it back yesterday and lit it up. It just handles heating about 8 ping that is curtained off.
If we had a sealed door it would heat the 8 ping well and we would die from CO2 poisoning.
Heading off shortly to B&Q for the necessary stuff.
I tried the kero heater at 8-10,000btu with the gas at 15,000btu this morning.
Between the two its toasty warm.
OK gas heater, looking forward to see that in action. Is it cheaper to run than a kero heater, or is the smell less pungent?
Fired up the kero heater for the first time this year this past week. No burn-off or anything. Just stuck in the kero, fired it up and off it went with no smell at all.
Brave man indeed… when back from work or when it gets a bit warmer, then dry-burn it. You will save on the fuel too, as it will burn it off more effeciently.
I managed to get a kero heater inside with wifes permission yesterday. I definitely have to light and put out outside. This is when they are smelly.
To detect the smell you need to leave the house and return, otherwise you just get used to it.
No smell I can detect and my wifey smell detector has not gone off, it has a high decibel alarm.
I had 10 degrees in the other 8 ping behind the curtain and 20 degrees last night in the living room 8 ping.
Only got to this by running the 8-10,000btu kero heater and the 15,000btu gas heater in the 8 ping area.
Toasty warm for the first winter in 3 years!
Heres a pic of the gas heater I run.
Its 15,000btu and seems to use 400nt of gas for about 40-50 hours or say 8-10nt an hour.
The kero heater next to it is around 10,000btu and is cheaper to run at around 5-6nt an hour.
Extra btu’s and convenience make the gas a winner though…
Only provisions I would make is to check ventilation is okay in any room and install or check your gas alarm is working. Ours goes off with just 2 seconds on unlit gas in the room.
A vented gas heater or a vented kero heater would be my winner - as they are vented, they can be bigger, and pump out more heat. Also no smell.
The vented kero heaters can be run from an external tank. If you have a setup like that, you can buy a whole drum of kerosene and have it delivered, there are a few companies doing that.
I’m heading next for a vented gas wall heater. 40,000btu.
It can always be turned down if the furniture starts to melt.
By the time you connect a kero one and still have all the hassle of dry burning and carting kerosene around the place its getting a bit much.
Gas just always works no problem with the guys delivering it.
In that case I take the old kero heater off your hands…
I can see a few uses of it.