(2 of 2)
The new heaters are another import from Japan. The Japanese developed the high-tech models in the 1950s to replace hazardous charcoal braziers that were used in 19 million Japanese homes for heating as well as cooking. Most of the machines are made by seven companies, including Matsushita Electric, Toshiba and Hitachi, and sold in the U.S. by eleven distributing companies.
Both the Americans and the Japanese were slow to recognize the potential of the U.S. market. The Japanese briefly considered a heavy sales effort but abandoned the idea. It was felt that America's central-heating mentality would not accept them. The man who brought the heaters to the U.S. was William Litwin, 51, a former Pan Am pilot and president and founder of Kero-Sun in Kent, Conn., the largest U.S. seller of kerosene heaters (1981 revenues: about $100 million). In 1975, while on a trip to his native California, Litwin saw his first kerosene heater on a cousin's cabin cruiser. Impressed, he went to Japan to see the manufacturer, Toyotomi, and persuaded the firm to provide him with 200 heaters for a trial sale. He already ran a wood-stove shop in Kent. His wife Marcia came up with the name Kero-Sun.
Rising energy costs and Kero-Sun came together at precisely the right time. By the end of 1976, its first year, Kero-Sun had sold 6,000 heaters. Last year it imported 830,000. Litwin says that this year 1.5 million units in the nine Kero-Sun models will flow out of the company's four warehouses around the U.S. The company has 57 distributors and 10,000 retail outlets in the U.S.
Litwin now has a gaggle of competitors, all importing Japanese heaters. Some of the names: Aladdin, Radiant King and Turco. One of the main problems faced by Litwin and the other importers has been to convince municipalities and state legislatures that the machines are safe, unlike the models of the '30s and '40s. The companies have been largely successful. At the end of 1980, ten states had bans against kerosene heaters. Now only four do. Underwriters' Laboratories, which tests consumer products for safety, has given most of the heaters its approval.
The dangers with the heaters are not so much with the devices but with their incorrect use. If operated for long periods in rooms with no ventilation, asphyxiation can result from carbon-monoxide poisoning. Use of gasoline instead of kerosene can cause explosions. Kerosene advocates point out that if instructions are followed, the heaters are no less safe than toasters or power tools. Moreover, they say, in Tokyo, where 90% of the houses have kerosene heaters, there occur only some 7,000 fires a year. In New York City, with hardly any kerosene heaters, there are 128,000 fires.
—By John S. DeMott. Reported by Anna Constable/Atlanta and Robert T. Grieves/Kent