1import{g as p}from"../chunks/jWnQwlpl.js";import"../chunks/DsnmJJEf.js";import{p as c,t as w,a as g,g as e,u as r,c as m,o as f,s as y,r as b}from"../chunks/C-PNWz4H.js";import{s as k}from"../chunks/Idju45AT.js";import{a as v,f as I}from"../chunks/CFrMDv8E.js";import{c as T}from"../chunks/CM7gtmCv.js";import{h as j}from"../chunks/IKmrZqpC.js";import{M as S}from"../chunks/F20aZFr-.js";const O=JSON.parse(`[{"title":"A Thirty Two Month Project","path":"house/a-thirty-two-month-project","published":"2025-04-13T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>In August 2022, we visited our first house maker (construction company) and real estate agent. Thirty two months later,</p>\\n<p>From when we started this in 2022 August to 2025 April, it's been a 32 months.</p>\\n<p>I'm writing this a week before our house is complete. A project we didn't expect to go this long. A project that challenged us in all sorts of ways. A project which felt like a high stakes Japanese lesson. A project which is the most expensive thing I've ever done.</p>","slug":"a-thirty-two-month-project"},{"title":"About the house","path":"house/about-the-house","published":"2025-05-04T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>After a 2.5 years journey of searching, researching, designing and building, we finally moved into our wonderful new house in Kichijoji.</p>\\n<p>We spent a year looking for and buying the land, and then we spent a year and a half designing and building. Our architects, @sakumastudio were ever so patient, creative and wonderful to work with. Our builders @uchida_sangyou bought the design to reality with incredible precision and craftsmanship. And our landscaper @fujiwara_nursery put together an incredible moss & rock garden that didn't know was possible in our space.</p>\\n<p>I can't believe we did it. We stumbled our way through everything in my amateurish Japanese, learning everything about land transactions, bank loans, house design, building regulations and more.</p>","slug":"about-the-house"},{"title":"HEMS","path":"house/hems","published":"2025-05-05T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>HEMS failed a few days ago. I suspected it was the wire that was not working between the blind RF units to the HEMS adapter. However, the manual is pretty low on issues.</p>\\n<p>After buying a new crimp, redoign the wire, it still didn't work, and I found that if I disconnect the rest of the units it would work. So it seems to indicate that it was not the</p>","slug":"hems"},{"title":"House Build Timeline","path":"house/house-build-timeline","published":"1901-01-01T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<ul>\\n<li>[[2022-08-22]] contact with Regard</li>\\n<li>[[2022-08-27]] visited regard built house (c=0.3)</li>\\n<li>[[2022-09-03]] first visit to the model house park (Okura Land), met with Sumitomo Ringyo, Daiwa, Sanei</li>\\n<li>[[2022-09-14]] Met with Fujiwara from Osaka</li>\\n<li>[[2022-09-17]] Met with Tokyo Wood & Arr Gallery</li>\\n<li>[[2022-09-23]] : Met with Ones Life Home : Kitazawa</li>\\n<li>[[2022-09-26]] Contact with Sakuma</li>\\n<li>[[2022-10-01]] : Met with Mitsui Home at Komazawa</li>\\n<li>[[2022-10-05]] : Met Sakuma</li>\\n<li>[[2022-10-15]]: Met with real estate agent from Sumitomo</li>\\n<li>[[2022-10-16]] Nerima Regard House</li>\\n<li>[[2022-10-17]]: Visited Mizuno-san's house</li>\\n<li>[[2022-10-20]] : Visited land in Oyamadai and old houses in Kuhonbutsu with Fujita-san</li>\\n<li>[[2022-10-21]] : Met with Tokyu Livable Agent</li>\\n<li>[[2022-10-22]]: Visited model house park in Komazawa</li>\\n<li>[[2022-10-25]] : Visited land in Tairamachi, the land we ended up putting our first offer in and then withdrew straightaway.</li>\\n<li>[[2022-10-27]] : Putting in a loan pre-approval application</li>\\n<li>[[2022-10-30]] : One's Life Open House</li>\\n<li>[[2022-11-03]] : Fujita meeting?</li>\\n<li>[[2022-11-07]] : Fujita meeting - first time seeing Higashitamagawa.</li>\\n<li>[[2022-11-09]] : Fujita meeting after realizing the Tenrikyou thing.</li>\\n<li>[[2022-11-12]]: One's Life Project Inspection</li>\\n<li>[[2022-11-10]] Fujita on Higashitamagawa</li>\\n<li>[[2022-11-23]] : Fujita Meeting</li>\\n<li>[[2022-12-01]]: Fujita Meeting at Adcast</li>\\n<li>[[2022-12-15]] : Fujita Meeting</li>\\n<li>[[2023-01-07]]: Fujita Meeting, maybe about the Todoriki land</li>\\n<li>[[2023-02-24]]: Fujita meeting seeing Oyamadai</li>\\n<li>[[2023-03-03]]: Fujita exchange about Oyamadai</li>\\n<li>[[2023-03-14]] : Fujita meeting</li>\\n<li>[[2023-03-19]]: Fujita meeting with Oyamadai</li>\\n<li>[[2023-03-22]]: Fujita Meeting to see Oyamadai</li>\\n<li>[[2023-03-28]] : Fujita told us about the loan issue.</li>\\n<li>[[2023-03-30]]: Fujita meeting at Adcast for Oyamadai about loan issue.</li>\\n<li>[[2023-05-03]] : Visited Kichijoji (Kugayama) to see if we would consider that area after 6 months of looking in the south.</li>\\n<li>[[2023-06-16]]: Met with Kichijoji Real Estate Agent - Shokusan best.</li>\\n<li>[[2023-06-29]]: Met with Kichijoji Real Estate Agent</li>\\n<li>[[2023-06-30]]: Put in the offer for the land.</li>\\n<li>[[2023-07-10]]: Put down the deposit for the land.</li>\\n<li>[[2023-08-01]]: Moved into Inokashira apartment</li>\\n<li>[[2023-08-18]] : Signed loan contract</li>\\n<li>[[2023-08-21]] Negotiation with Regard on contract</li>\\n<li>[[2023-08-25]] : Met with HAN (Matsuda)</li>\\n<li>[[2023-08-29]] : Completed Land Payment</li>\\n<li>[[2023-08-31]] : Zoom meeting with Sakuma</li>\\n<li>
1[[2023-09-04]]: Architect Contract signed.</li>\\n<li>[[2023-10-08]]: Open House with HAN for Cameron's place : <a href=\\"https://www.han-arc.com/blog/inogashira/\\">https://www.han-arc.com/blog/inogashira/</a></li>\\n<li>[[2023-11-25]] : Visit Sanwa Showroom, LIXIL showroom</li>\\n<li>[[2023-12-22]] : Visit Toto Showroom</li>\\n<li>[[2023-12-18]]: Sakuma visit Google</li>\\n<li>[[2024-01-27]] : Visit Toto Showroom, Panasonic Showroom</li>\\n<li>[[2024-02-22]]: Visit AICA Showroom</li>\\n<li>[[2024-03-25]]: Construction Plan sent for bids.</li>\\n<li>[[2024-04-05]]: Visit Toto/YKKAP Showroom</li>\\n<li>[[2024-04-07]]: Visit Toto Showroom & LIXIL Showroom</li>\\n<li>[[2024-04-15]] Visit Toto Showroom</li>\\n<li>[[2024-05-18]] : Swapped Bank Managers to Yorimoto</li>\\n<li>[[2024-05-22]] : Visit Toolbox Showroom</li>\\n<li>[[2024-05-31]]: Met with Uchida Construction</li>\\n<li>[[2024-06-06]]: Applied for construction permission</li>\\n<li>[[2024-06-20]]: Signed contract with Uchida</li>\\n<li>[[2024-07-02]] : Land blessing ceremony å°é®ç¥</li>\\n<li>[[2024-07-04]] : BELS cerification & Tokyo Zero Emi Approval</li>\\n<li>[[2024-07-18]]: Submitted Electricity Sell Application</li>\\n<li>[[2024-07-26]] : Foundation digging started</li>\\n<li>[[2024-08-03]] : First Renders</li>\\n<li>[[2024-08-26]] : Foundation pour started</li>\\n<li>[[2024-09-05]] : Foundation done.</li>\\n<li>[[2024-09-20]]: Frame completed.</li>\\n<li>[[2024-09-27]]: Second payment for construction</li>\\n<li>[[2024-10-10]] : Sakuma Meeting</li>\\n<li>[[2024-10-24]]: Sakuma Meeting onsite.</li>\\n<li>[[2025-03-18]]: Finalize Home Loan</li>\\n<li>[[2025-03-24]] : Final Inspection</li>\\n<li>[[2025-02-06]]: Informed about delay</li>\\n<li>[[2025-02-08]]: Initial interview with Fujiwara Landscaper</li>\\n<li>[[2025-03-24]]: Supposed to be the final inspection, not house is not ready. 1st Inspection.</li>\\n<li>[[2025-03-26]]: Delay meeting and Air Tightness test.</li>\\n<li>[[2025-03-31]] : 2nd Inspection</li>\\n<li>[[2025-04-01]]: Internet installation</li>\\n<li>[[2025-04-07]]: 3rd Inspection</li>\\n<li>[[2025-04-09]]: Book moving date</li>\\n<li>[[2025-04-11]]: Buy Fridge and Washing Machine</li>\\n<li>[[2025-04-17]]: Second bank loan transfer appointment</li>\\n<li>[[2025-04-18]]: 4th Inspection</li>\\n<li>[[2025-04-22]]: 5th Inspection</li>\\n<li>[[2025-04-23]]: Final inspection</li>\\n</ul>\\n<hr>\\n<p>I designed and built a house! My most difficult, biggest and most expensive project that I've been working on for the last 32 months. We chose the hardest way to do everything - yet I'm super pleased with how it turned out.</p>\\n<p>Hardest thing was we did everything in Japanese. From interviewing house makers, architects to working with real estate agents, banks, scriveners, architects, landscaper and construction company.</p>\\n<p>I'm pretty sure we made a lot of mistakes a long the way, maybe could of built it cheaper or faster. In the end, the house got built and I'm super happy with it.</p>\\n<p>We love our architect who did an amazing job, not only with the design but hand holding us through the whole build, even helped me with figuring the minutia of taxes, subsidies and solar energy contracts. Our construction company was not cheap, but in return the quality of the work was incredible. We saw the house go up, plank by plank, wall by wall.</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>It took us 9 months for find and buy a piece of land. Before we started, we were told to expect it to take 6-12 months. I thought we could do it in 3.</p>\\n<p>Our first offer for land only came 2 months into the project. We had only just started working with our first real estate agent that wasn't introduced to us by a house maker. We really didn't click with any of the real estate agents that were introduced to us. They also didn't seem that interested in us either. They'd often prepare things at the very last minute, ignoring our criteria for the land.</p>\\n<p>The first piece of land we wanted to buy was one in our old neighbourhood. The first neighbourhood we lived in, the one we lived in for the first 4 years. The plot was not big, but it opened up to a wide junction. In hindsight, we were too impulsive with this piece of land.</p>\\n<p>Like a lot of things in Japan, the process is not clear. Things seem to have circular dependencies. For those who have moved here, there are weird circular dependencies like needing a to register your residency before you can get a mobile phone contract, which in turn needs you to have a phone number.</p>\\n<p>Same thing happens for real estate transactions. When you want to build a house, the first thing you do is not to find the land (bonus if you already had land). But the first thing is to meet with who you think would help you build the house, a house maker (construction company) or an architect. One doesn't just make an offer for a piece of land, you need to first secure a loan approval, and to have that loan approval, you need to know how much it is you need to build a house. So you need an architect or house maker to give you an estimate which you take to bank.</p>\\n<p>While it was a mistake to try to make an offer for this piece of land, it did kick off a whole bunch of work that helped us for subsequent offers. We withdrew the offer pretty much the next day after realizing we were too impulsive. The architects and housemakers gave us a \\"meh\\" verdict on the land, not saying it sucked, but pointed out that the land was quite narrow and would restrict what we could do.</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>When you work with a real estate agent, they're usually specializing in a particular area of Tokyo. Our first serious real estate agent was in the southern part of Tokyo, near Jiyugaoka and Futago Tamagawa. We found them buy scouring through listings on Suumo and Lifull, noticing that this company had the majority of the new listings. Afterwards, we realized this is not a great way to judge the quality of the agent since those listings are misleading.</p>\\n<p>When you work with an agent, you don't really get to choose. If you get refered to an agent from a company, you can't easily switch to another agent in the same company. And after working with this agent for several months, we realized he was too inexperienced and make too many mistakes for us to continue with them.</p>\\n<p>The first flag is when we put in our offer for the second piece of land. That piece of land was owned by the same company from this agent. And he was upfront about it. That's is not the problem. They even offered to half the agent fee. The problem was that there was critical information about the land that they didn't share with us until we found out ourselves. One of the adjoining neighbours we had was a church for a cult (Tenrikyu). After some stressing about this, we withdrew our offer a few days before we put down the deposit. We felt bad about it, but now that we look back on it, the real estate agent should of known.</p>\\n<p>The second flag was when we put down an offer for a fourth piece of land. The land was really nice, in Oyamadai, but was a piece of a plot that had been split into four after a huge house was demolished. The problem was on one side of the land was a huge 3m high retaining wall. We knew that was not something we wanted to deal with so we chose the plot that wasn't connected to the wall. However, as we did more investigation and evaluation, it turns out part of the retaining wall was inside our plot and the ownership/responsibility was unclear. This seems like an issue that real estate agent should have discovered and remedied, but he did not. He rushed us to get to a contract stage, and was only thwarted when the bank also told them it was a problem and that our loan pre-approval did not cover land that had a retaining wall. To further compound the error, the agent then proposed that we look for a loan with a different smaller bank who would loan for that piece of land, disregarding our need to have the bank do a split loan for land and build.</p>\\n<p>At that point, we had lost confidence with the agent and paused our search.</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>How we decided on our area.</p>\\n<p>The land we finally found was in an area that we had barely been to. For 6 years, we lived in southern Tokyo, in and around Meguro-ward. While we explored a lot, our radius of activity was usually around where we lived.</p>\\n<p>After several set banks with offers falling through and problems with our agent, we decided that we need to look elsewhere. Patricia came up with two new suggestions of places to look for -- Kichijoji or Kamakura. They're pretty extreme, Kichijoji is all the way out West in Tokyo. Technically still very \\"central\\" in Tokyo, but is actually outside of the 23 special wards. Kamakura is actually outside of Tokyo, all the way down by the sea in Kanagawa Prefecture.</p>\\n<p>We describe to people that we are now living in Kichijoji, but really it's 2 short train stations away (20 mins walk). This area is pretty residential, 15 mins walk from the station and you'll be hitting your first farm. But if you tell people you live there, two reactions will happen : 1. They've live there before or 2. They've heard it's the most desirable neighbourhood in Tokyo!</p>\\n<p>One weekend, we just decided to go to Kichijoji to walk around. We chose a station 3 stops away from Kichijoji and just walked around and around the neighbourhood. Looking at the houses, stumbling across empty lots and comparing what we saw in the real estate apps.</p>\\n<p>We loved the area, kicking ourselves a bit for wasting 6 months looking in an area that had not much supply and also 20-30% more expensive than Kichijoji.</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>How we decided on our real estate agent.</p>\\n<p>Once we decided that this would work, we looked up local real estate agents. I wanted to work with smaller agents that were local to the area rather than larger mega real estate companies. These mega real estate companies tended to be quite transactional in our experience. Maybe they had a lot of listings, but the service was pretty minimal.</p>\\n<p>We looked up one that had a quirky website -- they had funny photos of their staff and listing their favorite hobbies. I ended up with an agent that listed snowboarding as their hobby. It doesn't really matter what their hobbies are really, but the fact is that the company didn't take themselves too seriously (staff was not in ties and suits all the time), but also they could speak more casually to us, less honorific language.</p>\\n<p>Within the first two meetings, we informed the agent we had already shortlisted three plots we wanted to make an offer for. Our agent was shocked we decided within such a short amount of time. So shocked that he convinced us to not put in an offer yet and he'd take us to some more plots.</p>\\n<p>I appreciated that he was looking out more for us making a bad decision than rushing to close the deal.</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>Things about buying land I didn't know</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>How do you choose a Landscaper?</p>\\n<p>
1Choosing a landscaper is not like</p>","slug":"house-build-timeline"},{"title":"House","path":"house/house","published":"2025-12-16T00:00:00.000Z","status":"published","content":"<p>Coming soon. Meanwhile, <a href=\\"https://architecturephoto.net/241498/\\">architecturephoto interviewed Sakuma-san</a>, my architect, about this house.</p>\\n<p><img src=\\"https://content.liquidx.net/media/house/2025-12-16-house-d3723422.png\\" alt=\\"interior.png\\"></p>","slug":"house","image":"https://content.liquidx.net/media/house/2025-12-16-house-d3723422.png"},{"title":"How It Started","path":"house/how-it-started","published":"2025-04-13T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>I've wanted to design and build a house for decades. When I arrived in Japan seven years ago, Patricia and I had many conversations. It likely sounded like a wild fantasy as we've rented all our lives from Cambridge to London to New York and now Tokyo.</p>\\n<p>I love architecture, modern, quirky. Clean lines, bare concrete, huge windows. All of it. Tokyo seemed like the only possible place where my financial means could make it happen. But when we moved here, we didn't know how long we'd stay, long enough to buy something? Never even thought about long enough to build something.</p>\\n<p>Patricia is worked as a freelance architecture photographer, I loved to go architecture traveling -- that's mainly looking at buildings and then drinking coffee. We'd have Google Maps Lists of interesting building in Osaka, the complete works of Tadao Ando in my Google Maps so that I can make that little visit whenever I'm in proximity of one.</p>\\n<p>The first place we rented in Tokyo was a bare concrete house. Patricia tells me I grinned ear to ear when I saw this place after ten other rentals. It was cool, not Tadao Ando cool, but I loved the bare walls. Four years later, we moved out and I was so glad to leave. Concrete houses are the worse houses to live in, nearly no insulation, whatever the temperature is outside, is what you will experience inside.</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>After four years of living in Japan, I loved it. I thought I'd be staying. My Japanese still sucked, but enough to stumble by.</p>","slug":"how-it-started"},{"title":"On Choosing A Bathroom","path":"house/on-choosing-a-bathroom","published":"2024-03-24T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>Panasonic or Toto</p>\\n<p>TOTO has a lot of auto cleaning features like floor cleaning and bathtub cleaning that the others don't have.</p>\\n<p>Panasonic has nice lighting.</p>\\n<p>I'm not a fan of the controls for the new bathrooms that are these dials and buttons. They seem fragile, but they are more compact.</p>\\n<p>Panasonic seems to be a bit more expensive than TOTO.</p>\\n<p>Panasonic allows you to make your own quote using their online service:\\n<a href=\\"https://www14.arrow.mew.co.jp/ihows/a2B/control.AplControl?a2sid=lu4yq35n2nyrvi_lu52cff0\\">https://www14.arrow.mew.co.jp/ihows/a2B/control.AplControl?a2sid=lu4yq35n2nyrvi_lu52cff0</a></p>\\n<p>TOTO doesn't have anything like this, you need to read their \\"Planning Guide\\" and manually add up their prices.</p>\\n<hr>","slug":"on-choosing-a-bathroom"},{"title":"On Choosing A Kitchen","path":"house/on-choosing-a-kitchen","published":"2025-03-24T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>System kitchens.</p>","slug":"on-choosing-a-kitchen"},{"title":"On Choosing Sakuma","path":"house/on-choosing-sakuma","published":"2025-03-21T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>According to my records, we first met him in October 2022. I remember his office was a two storey wooden house half way between Kichijoji and Mitaka. We had travelled all the way from Jiyugaoka where I was living to have our initial meeting with him.</p>\\n<p>Two weeks later (Oct 17 2022), he invited us to see one of his clients house, we ended up spending two hours at this place chatting with the owner and seeing them super excited about their house.</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>To think that in April 2025, we finally completed the house, this whole thing took 2.5 years to do.</p>","slug":"on-choosing-sakuma"},{"title":"On Finding Land","path":"house/on-finding-land","published":"2025-03-21T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>Topics:</p>\\n<ul>\\n<li>Finding an agent</li>\\n<li>First meeting</li>\\n<li>Recommended agents</li>\\n<li>How big?</li>\\n<li></li>\\n</ul>","slug":"on-finding-land"},{"title":"On how it started","path":"house/on-how-it-started","published":"2025-06-28T00:00:00.000Z","content":"<p>Four years of living in a concrete oven in Tokyo pushed me to want to live in a house I designed. I could finally choose to have SOME insulation rather than zilch. A place that looked like Tadao Ando designed didn't mean one that he'd also live in.</p>\\n<p>It started from books. We bought ¥200 magazines, ¥1000 books about how to build a house. They contained so much new knowledge. Things I hadn't thought about before, like the different types of loans, wooden or not, which direction the land faces, and more. All in Japanese, I studied them as much as I could. Pictures and diagrams were wonderful, and if I couldn't figure out the propose, out came Google Translate on the phone.</p>\\n<p>The one thing the books said on how to get started, was that there was no one way to get started. Just get started.</p>\\n<p>So that's what we did, we did several things in parallel. We visited a home builders park where they have all their model houses. At the same time, we started searching in suumo and homes.co.jp for agents to contact, and started walking the streets to spot plots of land.</p>","slug":"on-how-it-started"},{"title":"On Landscaping","path":"house/on-landscaping","published":"2025-03-11T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>[[2025-03-11]]</p>\\n<p>This is the part of the house I really have no idea, nor do I want to spend a lot of money on. I need some basics, something that looks decent, a few requests like wanting a Momiji tree which I think is one of the most beautiful trees. But beyond that, I'm not too fussed about the garden.</p>\\n<p>Initially we had to choose amongst many different landscapers. And landscapers don't have the best websites. So it was really hard to pick. Also, they take their work really seriously, and some have a vision they don't want to compromise.</p>\\n<p>So we ended up choosing one that seemed easy to work with, maybe younger with less stubborness.</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>One of the small features I did want in the garden was a Japanese rock garden. In Japanese, these are called <a href=\\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_dry_garden\\">karesansui</a> and are generally found in temples and monasteries, especially in Kyoto.</p>\\n<p>Our architect was surprised we wanted something like this. He made a quip about how you don't want it to be like a random garden in a Izakaya. We laughed at the joke, not knowing if he was serious or not.</p>\\n<p>My initial plan was to create a circular rock garden with the gravel was inside a circle. However, as we progressed, none of the architects or landscapers really liked my idea. They kept on moving me to the opposite direction of creating something circular in the middle and the gravel would be around it. I tried several weeks to describe what I wanted, but in the end, I relented to their expertise.</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>It turns out rocks are really quite expensive, a large one, could cost ¥120,000 easy. If you have a few of these it c
1ould end up being quite an expensive garden. The gravel you put in, generally is more white, and it is common to use a special gravel called Shiragawa ç½å·. It's not cheap gravel, but ytou can get 100kg of this for Â¥20,000. I've started to know too much about rocks and gravel.</p>","slug":"on-landscaping"},{"title":"On Networking Equipment","path":"house/on-networking-equipment","published":"2025-03-29T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>Decided to switch to some more pro gear for networking.</p>\\n<ul>\\n<li>Purchased Unify Security Cameras which requires a UDM or Dream Router (which is not available in JP)</li>\\n<li>Getting planning to get the UDM-SE (PoE x 6, PoE+ x 2) and 2.5Gb WAN port\\n<ul>\\n<li>Depth : 285.6mm</li>\\n<li>Height: 1U</li>\\n</ul>\\n</li>\\n<li>U7 Pro Â¥32800 (PoE+)</li>\\n<li>(Optional) Standard Switch PoE\\n<ul>\\n<li>Depth: 200mm</li>\\n<li>Height iU</li>\\n</ul>\\n</li>\\n<li>(Optional) Lite 16 PoE 45W PoE+</li>\\n<li></li>\\n<li>Need to get a server rack mount 30cm deep, max 45cm tall.\\n<ul>\\n<li><a href=\\"https://www.startech.com/en-us/server-management/rk812wallo\\">2-Post 8U Heavy-Duty Wall-Mount Network Rack, 19\\" Open Frame Server Rack, 12\\" Deep, Wall Mount Data</a></li>\\n<li></li>\\n</ul>\\n</li>\\n</ul>","slug":"on-networking-equipment"},{"title":"On Property Deed","path":"house/on-property-deed","published":"2025-03-18T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>In Japan your land and building needs to be registered with the Legal Affairs Bureau æ³åå±. What is actually registered is not quite what I expected, but it makes sense.</p>\\n<p>I first encountered this interesting registration when I was putting in offers for land. The real estate agent was able to get me records of the ownership of the land as I was doing my due-diligence. In fact, they were able to get it before I made an offer. The information, as I later found out when I had to register my own land, is available on request from this official registration website (<a href=\\"https://www1.touki.or.jp\\">https://www1.touki.or.jp</a>).</p>\\n<p>The registration includes the full name of who owns the property, their registered address, how they acquired it (inheritance, land split, purchase, etc) and then also if they had a loan, how much the loan was for. That last bit is interesting because they could of loaned the full amount, or even 110% of the full amount to cover all the fees, or less than the full amount.</p>\\n<p>One thing I hadn't considered until we met with our scrivener was what happens to that address that was put down. For example, I am currently renting and living at address A. I buy property B, but when I transacted, my address is still A, so that shows up in the deed. Then I move to property B and live there, so the address on my deed is not out of date! Should I be bothered to change the deed address to property B?</p>\\n<p>So turns out you need to pay a few thousand yen to make that change after you move, and apparently it was not required that you do this, until 2026.</p>","slug":"on-property-deed"},{"title":"On Researching","path":"house/on-researching","published":"2025-03-21T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>Started in earnest in [[2022-09]]:</p>\\n<p><img src=\\"https://content.liquidx.net/media/house/2025-03-21-on-researching-23b32c4a.png\\" alt=\\"Pasted image 20250321193807.png\\"></p>","slug":"on-researching","image":"https://content.liquidx.net/media/house/2025-03-21-on-researching-23b32c4a.png"},{"title":"On Scrivener Certification","path":"house/on-scrivener-certification","published":"2025-03-18T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>[[2025-03-18]]</p>\\n<p>From what I understand, property transactions are quite different in Japan compared to the western world.</p>\\n<p>There are no lawyers involved in the process, large sums of money are transfered and there is a legal representative that helps certify and register things, but things aren't protected by lawyers and escrow.</p>\\n<p>The Scrivener is like the legal secretary for your transaction. They ensure that everything is done correctly and recorded. When we first bought the land, the real estate agent chose the scrivner. I really had no idea what they were for, we just went with whatever he said. The lady showed up twice in the whole process, first when we signed the documents for the loan, to certify our loan, and then on the day of the final transaction, ensured that the seller got paid, ensured the seller also used the funds to settle the existing loan they had, and then ensured our deed was registered correctly and eventually sent us all a record of the deed. Funny thing is that we don't actually get the deed as a piece of paper, we get a password that allows us to access and change the deed. We get a hard copy the registeration details, but apparently anyone else can also get this online at ããã</p>","slug":"on-scrivener-certification"},{"title":"On Smart Houses in Japan","path":"house/on-smart-houses-in-japan","published":"2025-03-28T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>Two weeks before our final inspection, the electricity was finally connected. The sockets, electronics, air conditioners etc were installed. The moment of truth, did I get the right gear?</p>\\n<p>
1It's still too soon to tell.</p>\\n<p>In designing and building this house, I had a side quest to make it a software controllable house, or what others call a Smart Home.</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>The breaker board (åé»ç¤) I wanted was the Smart Cosmo (ã¹ãã¼ãã³ã¹ã¢) which was a breaker board that can measure the power consumption through every breaker and report it. For an unknown reason, the electrician decided to use a non-smart cosmo board which lacked this. The reason he gave was because it physically could not fit in the space I wanted. Why it didn't fit? Because the number of circuits blew up from 18 circuits in the house to 30 something.</p>\\n<p>Also today, I realized why the space was also limited. My architect decided to put a bunch of Â¥20,000 light switches up next to the ceiling breaker box. Not sure why she thought that was a good idea, and also not sure why I agreed to it at the time!</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>What are these Â¥20,000 light switches. These are the Panasonic Advance Link Plus switches. They look like a regular light switch but have a Bluetooth LE so it can connect to devices like Panasonic AISeg2. This was the best Japanese solution I could find, better than something like Philip Hues because the control came at the switch level rather than at the light bulb level. I suspect this is similar to Lutron, but much less sophisticated and more expensive.</p>\\n<p>I swear there is an opportunity to create something like Lutron but for Japan.</p>\\n<p>Back to these Panasonic Advance Link Plus, I thought my solution was foolproof, except for one issue. If a light draws more than 2A, you can't use this.</p>\\n<p><a href=\\"https://www2.panasonic.biz/jp/densetsu/haisen/switch_concent/advance/lineup/linkplus/#lineup\\">https://www2.panasonic.biz/jp/densetsu/haisen/switch_concent/advance/lineup/linkplus/#lineup</a>\\n<a href=\\"https://www2.panasonic.biz/jp/densetsu/haisen/switch_concent/advance/lineup/linkplus/2wire_touch/\\">https://www2.panasonic.biz/jp/densetsu/haisen/switch_concent/advance/lineup/linkplus/2wire_touch/</a></p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>Other things I haven't figured out if they'll work. I made sure that I could get as much of my devices to be certified HEMS (Home Energy Management System) and speaking Echonet Lite, this common protocol that many Japanese appliances support, from air conditioners, fridges, heaters, blinds, solar panel controllers, etc. It allows both controlling and monitoring devices.</p>\\n<p>I had to even get sacrifice a little bit of machinery efficiency with the floor heating just because I wanted a controller that could support HEMS.</p>\\n<p>My architect chose Daikin for all the heating and cooling tech, and I believe one of the reason is that she was able to find ECHONet Lite supported devices. The floor heater could be controlled via EchoNet Lite through the controller (<a href=\\"https://www.ac.daikin.co.jp/sumai/yukadan/hotecofloor\\">BRC111A1</a>). Most of these devices, the wall mounted remote control is generally the bridge to the device, usually through wireless LAN. I have five floor heating zones in the house and so weirdly I've now ended up with two controllers :/</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p><img src=\\"https://content.liquidx.net/media/house/2025-03-28-on-smart-houses-in-japan-c4c06664.png\\" alt=\\"Screenshot 2025-03-28 at 22.02.21.png\\"></p>\\n<p><a href=\\"https://www.youtube.com/@KAITHEMS/videos\\">KAITHEMS - YouTube</a></p>","slug":"on-smart-houses-in-japan","image":"https://content.liquidx.net/media/house/2025-03-28-on-smart-houses-in-japan-c4c06664.png"},{"title":"On The Final Loan Meeting","path":"house/on-the-final-loan-meeting","published":"2025-03-18T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>[[2025-03-18]]</p>\\n<p>Today we make our final visit to the SMBC Loan Plaza. I really dislike this place. It's not really a bank, it's a non-descript office building with several meeting rooms.</p>\\n<p>I had to write my Japanese address by hand more than 10 times, write the names of the companies I need to pay on deposit slips, which I of course got wrong. Had to stamp my Hanko another 20 times on different pieces of paper. Finally, I completed all the paper work for my loan.</p>\\n<p>I've been working with this loan manager for the last 8 months, he took over from another loan manager who I seemed to be on his way out. This loan manager is friendly and enthusiastic, but really like a bumbling Mr Bean. You'd think someone who works as a loan manager would have a pretty good command of the numbers, but shockingly we've had numbers messed up, loans re
1calculated because of mistakes.</p>\\n<p>This final time we went to the office, after writing my address over and over again, I spotted that the only piece of paper where they wrote it for me, they got the house number wrong!</p>\\n<hr>\\n<p>Every time I go see the loan manager, he asks me for photos of the house. We don't really want to show him. He has the address of the house, if he wants to go see, he can walk over there on his lunch break. It's a 20 min walk from the loan office.</p>\\n<p>This final time, he asks again, and we play a bit dumb. What photos? You took photos? Oh my photos? Oh we don't take photos? Of the house? It's a mess.</p>","slug":"on-the-final-loan-meeting"},{"title":"On the foundation","path":"house/on-the-foundation","published":"2025-06-28T00:00:00.000Z","content":"<p>Scroll through how our land went from empty to structure in a couple of weeks.</p>\\n<p>You can see the shape of the house, angled 45 degrees from the road as three overlapping squares with a spine on the right hand side. We angled the house to get it to have direct south and east facing windows.</p>\\n<p>The happy result is there are so many interesting angles between rooms and views through the windows.</p>\\n<p>From the foundation to structure, it only took a single day. One day we walked by and it was just foundation, the next evening the whole structure was up!</p>","slug":"on-the-foundation"},{"title":"On these ads on signposts","path":"house/on-these-ads-on-signposts","published":"2025-03-21T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>[[2022-09]]</p>\\n<p><img src=\\"https://content.liquidx.net/media/house/2025-03-21-on-these-ads-on-signposts-4579c05b.png\\" alt=\\"Pasted image 20250321193840.png\\"></p>","slug":"on-these-ads-on-signposts","image":"https://content.liquidx.net/media/house/2025-03-21-on-these-ads-on-signposts-4579c05b.png"},{"title":"Sunlight simulation","path":"house/sunlight-sim","published":"2026-02-16T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>Write about how I used blender to simulate where I would get sunlight</p>","slug":"sunlight-sim"},{"title":"The Shape","path":"house/the-shape","published":"2025-03-24T00:00:00.000Z","status":"draft","content":"<p>One special thing about the house is the shape.</p>\\n<p>When we started working with our architect, his team had put together several different house shapes, an I-shape, T-shape and an L-shape. As we ummed and ahhed about them for a few weeks. Finally I said, \\"these are kind of safe, aren't they?\\" Our architect, delightfully responded with \\"I was waiting for you to say that.\\"</p>\\n<p>In our next meeting, we went through the shapes again. This time, he couldn't wait for us to get through the boring shape options again. Once we go to the last proposal, he lit up. It had three overlapping squares angled at 45 degrees. Our plot of land was angled about 50 degrees to the south, and so this pivoted most of our windows to be nearly directly south or east. I loved it.</p>\\n<p>The unusual orientation meant instead of right angles everywhere, we had many 45 and 135 degree angle corners. This challenged the design but also created a really cool perspectives at different locations in the house.</p>\\n<p>This did make the construction harder. Some builders couldn't build this house, our solar panels were not the most efficient and it meant we had to compromise on the ceiling height.\\nBut it allowed us to design this extremely open connected house with a large singular connected living room and kitchen that spanned the whole 1F without any exposed pillars.</p>","slug":"the-shape"}]`),A=!0,M=async()=>({...await p("house",O,"house")}),B=Object.freeze(Object.defineProperty({__proto__:null,load:M,prerender:A},Symbol.toStringTag,{value:"Module"}));var x=I('<div class="w-full md:max-w-wide md:w-wide"><h1 class="font-bold text-primary my-4"> </h1> <!></div>');function C(i,t){c(t,!0);const h=r(()=>t.data.component),a=r(()=>t.data.metadata);var n=x();j("7d7qp4",o=>{S(o,{get title(){return e(a).title},get description(){return e(a).title}})});var s=m(n),l=f(s,!0),d=y(s,2);T(d,()=>e(h),(o,u)=>{u(o,{})}),b(n),w(()=>k(l,e(a).title)),v(i,n),g()}
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