How to keep your home warm in a Hong Kong winter

^{Sai Kung Country Park Hakka house wood burning stove. Photo by TC}

It’s a good question as most Hong Kong homes are not insulated against the cold and can be very difficult to heat when the temperature drops to 12C and below.

Back in the UK growing up in the 50s, our home was drafty, the windows were single glazed and there was no central heating, so very like most Hong Kong homes to this day!

^{Single bar electric heaters were uniquitous}

We relied on gas stoves and hot water bottles in the bedrooms, a Rayburn hob fed by anthracite in the breakfast room and an open fire burning coal or logs in the living room, around which we would huddle in blankets with hot cocoa to keep warm.

^{Stone hot water bottle}

Speaking of hot water bottles, I am reminded of the time in the 50s when I had a sleepover in a friend’s house and was given a stone hot water bottle. My friend’s doctor dad told me to chuck down the end of the bed to warm it up before I got in. So I did and there was a horrible crash when the thrown bottle encountered the bottle already thrown into the bed earlier by my friend’s mum; neither bottle survived.

^{Paraffin stove heaters were once very common}

At boarding school in the 60s was no different. Although our house had coal fired central heating, the radiators in the dormitories were feeble and could not stop ice forming on the inside of the windows. They proved to be efficient earths for crystal set radios for illicit midnight listening to pirate radio stations Caroline and Radio Luxembourg, however.  

^{Gas fire}

I recall that in 1968, I had a feeble one bar electric fire to heat my room in Wanchai police mess which I smuggled into the old Police Training School when I stayed overnight there in a freezing Nissen hut.

I had no such luxury a few years later on a training school camp in a canvas tent at Hok Tau in NTNE when it was cold enough to freeze my shaving water solid.

Once married, I bought us a paraffin stove to heat our mid-levels apartment and Fanling bungalow which was pretty efficient but I have not seen them about in recent years.

^{New fangled 21st century heating system}

Right now, in the Sai Kung hinterland, we have an oil filled heater in the bedroom (the coldest room in the house, below the roof garden) and another in the living room but I find extra heating is required to counter the draft coming in under the front door. This is provided by the electric oven in the open plan kitchen!

^{Kitchen stoves were regularly used to heat up cold houses}

I am sure other Buzz readers use expensive Dyson or Chinese knock-off fan heaters but friends in traditional Hakka houses in the country park are doing very nicely with wood burning stoves –  although another country park pal tells me that that he relies on his wife and a rubber hot water bottle to keep warm.