I'm Takeshi Mori. For 35 years I stocked the emergency shelters of Nagaoka, in snowy Niigata. Here is how a Japanese home stays warm for less, cool for less, and calm through 7 days without power, in three plain books.
One payment, no subscription. In your email within a minute. 30-day money-back guarantee, and you keep the books.
All 3 books: Winter, Summer and Grid down, with the 6 fridge-door cards and the large-print editions.
Get all 3 books · $47
All 3 books, plus the pantry book: a rolling Japanese pantry, 15 one-pot nabe and the 7-day no-fridge menu. Both in one checkout.
Get both books · one checkoutMy daughter married an American and lives in Ohio. Two winters ago the power went out in a storm, and she called me in Japan and asked: Papa, what do Japanese families actually do when the heat goes out?
I had to laugh a little, because the answer is something every grandmother in Niigata knows. You do not heat the house. You heat one room, then the people in it, then the bed. You keep water and gas cans in the cupboard, and you know what to do in the first hour, so panic has nowhere to start.
In America almost nobody was taught this. So people pay to heat empty bedrooms all winter, pay to cool them all summer, and then buy a $2,000 generator because they are afraid of the dark week. That is three bills for one missing piece of knowledge.
I spent 35 years planning shelters and stocking them. I gave out water and blankets after the 2004 Chūetsu earthquake. These three books are what I would tell you if you sat at my kotatsu for one long evening.
Takeshi explains the three books in about two minutes.
Every list from my videos, and the chapters you asked for that are not in any video.
Two of them pay you back in lower bills. The third is for the week you hope never comes.
Keep about $2,000 this winter: one warm room, a warm bed, the thermostat 10°F lower.
How Japan lives through humid 95°F summers on far less air conditioning.
My Japanese 7-day household plan, from the man who stocked the shelters.
Japanese households keep a kakeibo, a little account book. Here is one winter in mine, for a propane-heated American home of two, November to March. Book 1 has a blank one for your own numbers.
Sources: U.S. EIA Winter Fuels Outlook (average propane winter $1,210; heating oil $1,390; electric $1,133; natural gas $642), Angi (portable generator prices), NEADA June 2026 (average cooling spend $792, June to September). Your home will differ: gas homes save less on heat, oil and propane homes more. That is why the ledger in the book is blank for your own numbers.
And summer comes next: the average American home spends $792 on cooling from June to September. Book 2 shows how Japan keeps about half of that.
Three books, one payment of $47.
Sixteen parts, eighty chapters. Prices are real US prices from Walmart, Dollar Tree, Amazon and Asian grocers, and the cheap way always comes before the expensive one.
At the back: The 30 Japanese Home Rules · Japanese words in plain English · The Seven-Day Stock Checklist · Your Winter and Summer Math Ledger · Where to Buy Everything in America.
Six fridge-door cards come with the set. This is the first one. When the lights go out, you don't read a book. You read the fridge.
The card above. No panic, because every step is already decided.
How much you have, where it is, and the 40 gallons in your water heater.
Lining the bowl step by step, and the trash-bag version.
The cassette stove, the thermos, and food from the rolling pantry.
Lanterns instead of candles. A phone that stays on for a week.
Or, if it's time to leave, leaving the Japanese way, in order.
Real comments, quoted word for word.
The mountains of Niigata in winter, where I grew up. Snow to the windows, and no central heating.
My grandmother ran a house through Niigata winters with a kotatsu, a futon and a pot on the fire.
I grew up in that farmhouse. We had no central heating. We had a kerosene stove, thick futons, pickled vegetables in the cellar and a pot of something always on the fire. Nobody in the house was ever really cold, and nobody spent money they didn't have to. My grandmother would call it mottainai: what a waste, to heat a room nobody sits in.
Then I spent 35 years at the city's disaster prevention office in Nagaoka. I planned the evacuation shelters, I checked the stockpiles, and after the 2004 Chūetsu earthquake I stood in the cold and handed out water and blankets. I saw which families were ready and which were not. The ready ones were not rich. They simply knew the order of things.
“The ready families were not rich. They knew what to do first, and they had already decided.”
I'm not an engineer and I'm not a doctor. I'm a retired city planner who stocked shelters for a living, and who still keeps his own house the way he taught everyone else to. I always tell you the cheap way before the expensive one. These books are written the same way.
All three books, every edition, and the cards for the fridge.
358 pages · 80 chapters · 16 parts · instant download
If they don't leave you warmer, cooler and more ready than the day you bought them, email me within 30 days for every cent back, and keep all three books. No forms, no questions.
Keep the house fed well and cheaply all year, and through an outage, with a rolling Japanese pantry and one pot. 134 pages, 15 one-pot nabe, the 7-day no-fridge menu. You'll be offered it once for $25. Say no and nothing changes.
Extremely helpful! I even made notes. Wrote a list. Thank you!@papphenriett
Three separate books, each with its own cover and title: The Warm Room Manual (winter), The Cool House Manual (summer) and When the Grid Fails (the 7-day plan). You get all three, plus the cards, the calendar, the shopping sheet and the large-print editions, for one payment.
Yes. After you pay, the books open on the next screen and arrive in your email. You tap the file and read it, like a photo someone sent you. If anything goes wrong, reply to that email. It comes to me, and I'll send the books again.
The books are set in large, clear type, and the set includes large-print editions of all three. You can also make the text bigger on any tablet, or print the pages you use most.
Then you're halfway there, and the Winter Math chapter will show you the rest: the bed, the floor, the bathroom, the kitchen, the hot water. The $2,000 is for a propane-heated home of two. Yours may be more or less, and the ledger in Book 1 lets you work out your own number. If the books don't pay you back, the guarantee does.
That is one of the most important chapters. Kerosene heaters only the Japanese way: fresh air every hour and a carbon monoxide alarm. Kotatsu only electric, never charcoal. Space heaters with the 3-foot rule. And a whole part on fire and CO, the rules we taught at every shelter.
Yes, a whole chapter: Living Alone Through an Outage. Who checks on you, what you write down, medicines and devices, and when it is time to leave.
Some tips, yes. But not in order, not with the prices, and not complete. The water and hot water part, the toilet-bag part with where the bags go, the pipes, the Winter Math and the 7-day plan are not in any video. They're the questions you asked me.
Many people do. Buy it with your own email, then forward the email or print the books and the six fridge cards for them.
I understand, and that is exactly who I wrote it for. The heat line alone covers the price in about three weeks. And if it doesn't help you, email me within 30 days and every cent comes back. You keep the books.
The first hard freeze is when the bill jumps and the lines get long. Three books, the fridge cards and a calm plan, ready on your phone tonight.
Get all 3 books · $47The Japanese Pantry Manual: Keep the household fed well and cheaply all year, and through an outage, with a rolling Japanese pantry and one pot.
Get both for $72
Let me show you how to make one room warm this afternoon with about $40 of supplies, so the rest of the house can go down 10 degrees. It's free, and I'll send it straight to your email.
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I never considered putting a bag in the toilet. That is a great idea. I wanted to thank you for the calmness in your voice. Thank you for this video.
When the power's gone out in winter, we cover open doorways with blankets to keep our One Room cozy.
Extremely helpful! I even made notes. Wrote a list. Thank you!
I grew up in London so I have about 27 hot water bottles 😂 They are so cozy and save so much money in heating bills 👍👍
Toilet bags one of the things I need and I thank you for sharing it. I didn’t even know they made anything like that thank you.❤❤❤
Charming video ! I've learnt much from this very educative talk ! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge !
Love the Japanese words! Thank you for sharing your culture of honor
Thank you for your great vision of knowing what can be done , not later 💞🌏😇