Portugal: how to keep warm in winter without central heating
Sunny and welcoming in the summer, Portugal has one insidious characteristic: as soon as winter begins, it gets cold and damp in Portuguese homes.
A light drizzling rain goes on week after week, and the piercing cold in the apartment becomes a common thing. When it's +10 on the street, the house can also be +10. And sometimes less if the windows face the north side.
The indigenous people are used to this situation, they stock up on blankets and warm home clothes. However, if the temperature drops, even the most seasoned ones can pamper themselves and light the fireplace. Every Portuguese house, most often in the hall, has a fireplace. In old houses, this is an ordinary fireplace that is heated with wood and has an open fire; it can easily heat a large hall or kitchen-dining room.
But there is one "but": after the firewood has burned, the room immediately cools down.
In new buildings the fireplace is equipped with a device called recuperador du calor, a kind of stove with glass that is inserted into the fireplace. The glass prevents smoke from entering the home, and the built-in motor drives the air and ensures even combustion. I love to look at a live fire, but I lit my fireplace only once, without the "recuperador" the room is full of smoke.
The new apartments provide for the possibility of individual heating, most often it is steam heating and a gas boiler. The house becomes warm and comfortable around the clock, and in modern systems there is an economy program, the boiler turns on at a certain time, warming the house only when the owner arrives.
In the matter of economy, those who use electric heaters and fan heaters, portable or wall-mounted, are definitely losing. Electricity bills in the winter months can run up to € 100-150, depending on the size of the apartment.
Cottage owners have more options. Most often it is steam heating and a large modern boiler that can use gas, wood, special long-burning briquettes, or all of this together. Solar panels are used mainly for heating water.
There are also air conditioners with air heating mode, mainly in public places and hotels, but for a home this is also a good option if you need to heat a small room.
It is important how well the house is insulated. If you have an old house, single glass windows and stone walls, then the wind will blow through the apartment.
All houses in Portugal have external blinds on the windows, which protect from the wind in winter and from the sun in summer. I don't like closing windows during the day, I like the sunlight in the apartment, but our neighbors keep the blinds closed all year round, they save heat.
Homeowners are trying to make repairs and insulate the apartment to the maximum. Outside, these are panels with foam, and inside, drywall with mineral wool insulation. In such an apartment it is much drier and warmer. But a glazed balcony is rarely seen in Portugal, because the summer is much longer than winter, and open balcony, you can happily grill meat, have a cup of coffee or simply dry linen.
By the way, in winter, drying things becomes a problem due to high humidity, and many use the services of laundries, where there are special drying machines.
They say that in the old days there was no need to heat the dwelling at all, although the winter was rainy, but warm. The climate is changing, and in the last 5-10 years it has become noticeably colder, sometimes there is sub-zero temperatures at night. Therefore, many follow the innovations in the field of heating, in search of effective and economical solutions.
I'm still inclined to think that if there is no steam heating, the cheapest way is to insulate the house well and turn on the electric heater only for a short time, but what do you think?
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