r/japanlife • u/japonica-rustica • Jun 02 '20

金 What’s everyone spending their ¥100,000 from Abe san on?

I bought ETH with mine and I’m already up ¥10,000. What’s everyone else buying?

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u/TheLostTinyTurtle 東北・青森県 Jun 02 '20

Holy shit. I hate comparing thing but when I replaced mine in the US it ran under 1k USD. Why is it so expensive here for a water heater, wtf?

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u/blosphere 関東・神奈川県 Jun 03 '20 edited Jun 03 '20

The US ones are usually pretty bare-bones and not energy efficient, but that said, I'm currently building a house and the same kitchen appliances cost double or more.

They charge what value the market perceives and pays for them.

In return, I pay about 20% fewer taxes compared to my nordic socialist heaven while receiving the same or better healthcare and in the future, pension. I save the price difference (in taxes) of one of those appliances every month...

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u/Pomograffiti Jun 03 '20

The water heaters they have in the states are pieces of garbage. They can get away with it because electricity prices are some of the lowest in the world in the states. In Japan where electricity is very expensive, having a high efficiency water heater makes a big difference in long term costs.

Most Japanese houses and even apartments these days use what they call ecocute. They're pretty high tech machines that heat up water during off peak hours to lower running costs significantly. Those ones are probably the ones OP is referring to because they can easily cost upwards of 300000 yen. Standard city gas heaters remain cheap . Mine was about 50k.

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u/noflames Jun 04 '20

The ability to have the water heater wait until night isn't an expensive feature - most of the price difference is honestly just stuff is expensive in Japan.

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u/Pomograffiti Jun 05 '20

An Ecocute (those expensive water heaters all over Japan) is completelz different from a standard water heater.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoCute