# Surviving a Portuguese winter - Please Help



## Layla_38

Hello everyone,

I'm new here  I’m considering moving to Portugal but what I have read about the winter and the lack of heating is making me hesitate, and I am looking for advice from seasoned vets like yourselves who have already had this experience.

I would be renting a flat and working from home, so I will be in the place more often than not. So staying warm and being comfortable are of utmost importance. I have a very strong anxiety about being cold because I am anemic and the thought of not having central heat plus the possibility of dampness/mold in is worrying me. My worst nightmare would be to be stuck in a cold, damp place and have to sleep in a damp bed (I've done before and gotten really ill).

The areas I am considering are:
Leiria (the city itself) and Caldas da Rainha


What are my options for heating up an apartment? I've come up with these solutions, but I don't know if they will be enough:

-Space heaters (only works for a space, and not sure if they will work well enough)
-Get an apartment with the dual ac/heating unit - but I know (from experience) they don't work that well unless you are in a small space
-I can get an apartment that faces the sun, but that’s only good for the daytime.

I’ve also read about the high cost of electricity there and since I will be working from home, I can imagine I will most likely be running a space heater (or two) in my work space all day. Can you give me a rough estimate of how much extra cost per month that would be?

What are some tips on how you stay warm? How bad is the winter, really? It’s hard to tell if my mind is over exaggerating things but I’ve slept in places without heat – Balkans in the dead of December for instance – and it’s not something I want to do as a part of my long-term life.

Since I've heard the winters are windy and rainy, (I know it varies depending on the area) I'm also curious if the rain a constant for 1-2 months, or are there breaks of sunshine? I suffer from Season Affective Disorder and worry that depression might kick in if I have to deal with weeks of straight rain.

I know this post has been long-winded and I have many questions  but I truly do appreciate any insight on this subject that will help me make my decision on whether to move or not to Portugal.

Thank you so much!


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## Strontium

May I humbly suggest you look at insulation ratings rather then just heating, a single small heat pump will keep a small flat warm and dry but only if it's insulated and with good fitted windows and doors. Having heating and no insulation is pointless, so a house with 27 radiators and a wood burner looks impressive but will be cold, damp, moldy and expensive to run in the cooler months.

But what I consider as acceptable is not necessarily what you consider acceptable so you need to spend some time (in every season) in the arera you want to live here to deciding what you will accept. Different areas have different climates here..


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## Layla_38

Strontium said:


> May I humbly suggest you look at insulation ratings rather then just heating, a single small heat pump will keep a small flat warm and dry but only if it's insulated and with good fitted windows and doors. Having heating and no insulation is pointless, so a house with 27 radiators and a wood burner looks impressive but will be cold, damp, moldy and expensive to run in the cooler months.
> 
> But what I consider as acceptable is not necessarily what you consider acceptable so you need to spend some time (in every season) in the arera you want to live here to deciding what you will accept. Different areas have different climates here..


Thank you for your reply. Where/how do I find out about insulation ratings? I'm guessing you mean when my feet are on the ground in Portugal and I'm doing an apartment search?

I'm not sure what a heat pump is - ?


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## Strontium

The only real way is to experience a house/flat/area yourself, heat efficiency ratings are given to buildings but may not be available for older buildings. I was looking at a small house near Coimbra last weekend, central heating was a boiler and one radiator in a knocked through kitchen but no insulation and the owner said it used a bottle of gas every two days when it was running (didn't check the bottle size). The cheap hotel I was in had upvc exterior doors and insulation and heat pumps - room would take 10 mins to warm up then get switched off as not needed. Heat pump works like a fridge in reverse, extracts heat from the outside air (or ground or water source) and emits it inside the building so using 25% of the energy to move 75% of the heat, in summer it can be reversed called air conditioning.


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## JohnBoy

Strontium said:


> The only real way is to experience a house/flat/area yourself, heat efficiency ratings are given to buildings but may not be available for older buildings. I was looking at a small house near Coimbra last weekend, central heating was a boiler and one radiator in a knocked through kitchen but no insulation and the owner said it used a bottle of gas every two days when it was running (didn't check the bottle size). The cheap hotel I was in had upvc exterior doors and insulation and heat pumps - room would take 10 mins to warm up then get switched off as not needed. Heat pump works like a fridge in reverse, extracts heat from the outside air (or ground or water source) and emits it inside the building so using 25% of the energy to move 75% of the heat, in summer it can be reversed called air conditioning.


Very interesting and useful information thanks Strontium. You suggest that a heat pump is air conditioning in reverse. Does that mean that it is as expensive to run as air conditioning? Our a/c units work both to cool and to heat and I have often wondered how much they actually cost to use as heaters versus say a conventional fan heater.

Please give me a shout if you are in the Coimbra area again. We could meet up for a coffee maybe.


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## Strontium

Quick and basic answer (ie lots of variables ignored) electric 3kW heater will use 3kW of electricity to produce 3kW of heat but a heat pump cycle of an air conditioner will extract heat from the air outside and transport it to indoors so (a random guess on efficiency) 1kW of heat pumping electricity will move 3kW of heat to indoors.

One way you pay EDP for 3kW the other you pay 1kW but get the same amount of heat.

There are several cheapish energy trackers available which give you a monitor of your electricity use - even reading the meter will give an indication - a day of fan heating vs a day of air con heating.

I did love the flowers carefully strewn down the old streets with some made into pictures and names, will be back.


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## JohnBoy

Thanks Strontium. Very useful.


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## Zola

*Winter & Home Heating*

I was born in Chicago and fled its winters. I too feared winter cold in Portugal, but only South Korea for two weeks was as cold as Chicago is for five months. I certainly miss the weather in Oman where I lived for 11 years!

Winter cold in Portugal is usually about 5-10 degrees Celsius. Maybe higher. Rarely lower. However, when I wear knee-high socks, I usually have to roll them down because I get too hot. My heavy winter coat from Turkey was too heavy. My heavy knee-high winter boots were too much. Simply wearing ankle boots is enough.

In Cascais, a friend helped me buy a big OZ heater from Jumbo for about 100 euros. I buy big canisters of gas for it. It heats up a room very fast. I only used it for the living room. Three to four canisters per month (with a window open a little to allow oxygen in to avoid death by carbon monoxide) 

However, since moving to an insulated building, I didn't use it that much last winter. (I resisted this form of heating, feeling like I was living in a third-world country with gas heaters, and it might be life-threatening. But I got used to it.) Sorry, I can't recall the price of the canisters.

However, I do use dehumidifiers - one for the bedroom and one for the living room. Winters are cold inside partially because of the damp. 

A friend in humid-rich Colombia keeps her closet/wardrobes open and a dehumidifier on in her bedroom. I do that occasionally, not often. I don't use a heater in the bedroom - hey, I'm all comfy in bed, asleep.

Being anemic you should be taking iron supplements. I just learned I am very anemic and must take the terribly strong supplement with a bad side-effect until I get my numbers up. Please do not ignore this advice. I think the anemia is what destroyed my energy levels.

If you're like me and stay indoors a lot, you may start walking outside for 20 minutes to get your Vitamin D. I also take Vitamin D supplements until I get that at a normal level.

In summary, the cold isn't that strong. It's easy to live with - especially if you live on a higher floor - heat rises from the lower apartments!


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## ericvoholo75

I can so feel you! I lived in Portugal for half a year and arrived in winter. It was colder in my apartment than outside! But well, my landlord gave me two space heaters and I used wool blankets at night, it was pretty much enough, but the problem was the bathroom, it was always pretty cold and I just had to survive that. So my recommendation would be space heaters, work ok for me. I don't remember how much I paid for electricity those months, but wasn't too crazy. And just go out of house to warm up


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## Strontium

I'd look at it a different way, people have lived here a long long time, many times longer then the US of A has existed and as they continue to do so without being wiped out by the "cold" there is no reason you should not live here assuming you are a human being. Spend time here, say 3 months from January, in a selection of different places - ie using an on-line room booking website - if one place is not to your liking then move on. The spring here is wonderful ( but you may hate it). If you find nowhere to your liking then just leave and either try again or don't come back, if you have convinced your self that interweb search is "research" then you are deluded, you need to come here experience Portugal in its many many guises and make up your own mind.


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## Zola

The poster seemed to have an Arabic name, so I thought she was from an Arabic country. If you have ever lived in such a country, you would know that the body and blood sets its 'normal' for that range. When it felt like spring during the winters in Oman, MANY Omanis wore winter coats. So yes, being concerned about heat or cold when you are not used to that is a reality that has to be dealt with. 

Not everyone can afford to move around a country during different season to test the weather.


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## Strontium

Sorry you T**T but II used to work for PDO------- and last month spent a week looking at beaches with a friend ( reason withheld) along 120km silver coast (nothing to do with fishing) 4 days cost 40E in hotels (for 2 peeps) 7E a day car hire. My god-daughter is named Layla and you know nothing about Arabic countries so FRO.


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## Weebobsgrampa

when asking for help its never really a great idea to be rude to people, it generally reflects on the level of help that person gets


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## dancebert

Layla_38 said:


> Where/how do I find out about insulation ratings?


Doesn't matter to the OP, but others might find this useful.

You won't find it searching for 'insulation rating'. Instead, search Declaração do Certificado Energético (Declaration of energy certificate.)

Explanation from a site with the (translated) subtitle 'Consumer Defense'.
https://www.deco.proteste.pt/dinhei...do-energetico-o-que-e-onde-pedir-quanto-custa

Chrome browser translates.


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## Zola

Strontium said:


> Sorry you T**T but II used to work for PDO------- and last month spent a week looking at beaches with a friend ( reason withheld) along 120km silver coast (nothing to do with fishing) 4 days cost 40E in hotels (for 2 peeps) 7E a day car hire. My god-daughter is named Layla and you know nothing about Arabic countries so FRO.


I lived in the Middle East for 15 years. So you are wrong to say I know nothing about it.


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## Gerarddm

I spent many years in the HVAC business. A heat pump is basically a reversible air conditioner. An air source heat pump typically has a coefficient of performance ( COP )of around 2 to 2.5, which means that for every kiloWatt you pump into it, it gives you 2 to 2.5 kiloWatts worth of heat. A straight electric heater has a COP of 1. Expressed another way, if it costs you 100 euro per month to heat your residence with an electric heater, with a heat pump it might cost you 50 euro, or possibly even a bit less. The great thing about heat pumps is that they wring humidity out of the air, which is a real plus in Portugal. Normal electric heaters don't do that. Many places in Portugal have those ductless heat pumps that sort of look like big Tootsie Rolls high up on a wall. They are good for up to around 1,000 sq ft of floor area, less of your don't have an open floor plan. Given the high cost of electricity in Portugal, I personally would be loathe to have a place without a heat pump, because I will be damned to move 10,000 miles to anywhere in Portugal just to be uncomfortable and/or unhealthy. My 2 cents; your mileage may vary.


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## kriszti

"An investigation carried out by the University of Dublin in 2003 concluded that Portugal is one of the countries of the European Union (EU) where mortality is significant due to lack of insulation and heating conditions in homes. Due to insufficient energy, health problems are generated, mainly respiratory difficulties and allergies." 

Full text is here :








Portuguese are very cold at home - Espaços & Casas


The association points to the purchasing power of the Portuguese and the most expensive electricity in Europe to say that it is natural that they




www.espacosecasas.pt


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## dancebert

kriszti said:


> "An investigation carried out by the University of Dublin in 2003...


That was 18 years ago. A current study would be useful.


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## kriszti

If you read the whole article that I annexed you will se another study from 2017 with horrible results...

I think almost nothing changed unfortunately, I live here for 12 years ... I teach in a school in Porto, last winter we had 12 Celsius sometimes in January in the room and we could only manage to warm up until 15 to the end of the day.... Kids all day in jackets and some of them had almost frozen hands, one of them had to go to see a doctor because of this, she couldn't bend the fingers (and she is not from a poor family)... My school was build 4 years ago, it is really modern and beautiful, yet no insulation and no heating system at all.... I dibt know when it will change or if it will ever...

Anyway this study is from 2017 (copied from the article annexed before) 


"According to a survey released by Quercus, only one in every 100 Portuguese consider their home to be thermally comfortable, while nearly three-quarters say they are cold in the house, leading to high energy costs in heating.

There were about 1,000 respondents:

- 74% consider their homes cold in the winter, 25% say they are hot in the summer and only 1% report that their home is thermally comfortable. So the energy costs to meet the heating needs are high.

The survey was launched by the Sustainable Construction Portal in collaboration with Quercus and was carried out between February and August 2017 with the objective of ascertaining the energy efficiency of Portuguese houses (whether they are cold, warm or comfortable).“


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## nb888

Depending on where you are in the country the Portuguese climate is generally a lot milder in winter than in most other european countries, and it only really gets "cold" for a couple of months a year meaning that installing and running an expensive heating system just isn't worth it for the few weeks it would need to be on. It is just considered to be "one of those things" in Portugal. Here in the UK a lot of people put the central heating when there is the slightest chill in the air and still walk around the house in shorts and t shirts, gas provides the majority of central heating systems here and that has been historically very cheap and there is central heating virtually every house. Essentially in Portugal houses and apartments are built for the summer in mind rather than the couple of months where it is cooler and it is just accepted that it necessary to wear more clothes in the winter months. One thing to notice is that in Portugal the air can be quite damp and this is where a dehumidifier may be more useful than a central heating system.

Personally I would say that 12 degrees is not even close to being cold, I work from home and in the winter have the window open and the temp is 12 degrees or less, if you have frozen hands if it is 12 degrees then you possibly have a circulation system problem which is quite concerning for a youngster and a worrying indictment if that is not picked up in good time but that is a separate story!

I think what happens a lot is that expats arrive in Portugal expecting that buildings are centrally heated to take the chill off the air, but are then surprised when there is little central heating around and buildings are quite potentially nippy depending on your frame of reference. If you are used it it - then it is what it is - if you have come from a country where you have the central heating on when it gets below 20 degrees then yes you will probably have a surprise. I have lived in countries in buildings with no central heating and no hot water and have managed just fine, I also don't see a national outcry in Portugal about this but having said that I don't live there so perhaps I have missed the rumblings, it is amazing how your frame of reference will change depending on what you are used to.

I don't know the current building regulations in detail in Portugal but even in the UK, a country with very strict building regulations, there is nothing that says for example, the insulation in new buildings has to be such that the inside temperature has to be a minimum of x degrees. There are of course laws and regulations about energy efficiency but this not the same thing as explicitly specifying a minimum temperature required by law because this is virtually unworkable. If I was being cynical I would say with reasonable certainty that building regulations are enforced and interpreted in "different" ways in the different municipalities...

Finally, I would say that an organisation such as the Sustainable Construction Portal is likely to have a vested interest in exaggerating the numbers of properties that are seen to be thermally inefficient, unless I have missed or misunderstood something I see no explanation of how the sample has been determined.


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## kriszti

If you read the article you see that portuguese themself consider their homes cold, and they are not comfortable. Yes, there is law that in schools should be 20 degrees guaranteed in Portugal, but majority of the schools can't afford to pay the electricity bill... WHO speaks about 18-20 Celsius as a good temperature for health, otherwise older, younger or vulnerable people when being still during houres get easily sick, they linked high mortality in Portugal because of this situation... It is fantastic if sy is just doing fine with 12 degrees, we are all different and we all know Eskimos are doing fine with less either, they survive and happy as well. Good for them. Let me just say that also a person always feeling hot even with cold temperatures can indicate health problems, for example high blood presure or tiroide problems (I had sy in my family, so I know it doesn't worth to fight about who feels more comfortable with colder temperatures, just when he got medication he experienced diferent) but for the majority in Europe I guess it is not a comfortable condition neither a healthy one, simply we are not prepared for these conditions...We also know that generally women need higher temperature, when they designe sleeping bags they have this in mind for example.

I can speak about North Portugal where I am living for 12 years that winter starts from November and until April probably and you will get very low temperatures at night, otherwise during the day it can be beautiful sunny. Last year we had 1 or two degrees in Porto in the morning and in Tras os Montes you have snow almost every winter, so temperature below zero... There are different solutions nowadays, heating pump works well in this climate, still you need good house isolation also because most portuguese houses have a lot of humidity and they get "fungus" (bolor em português) I don't know how does it called in English and you need probably a “desumificador“, also because clothes don't dry in 3-4 days sometimes in the winter without this... central heating is too expensive to pay here... Nowadays you can find better build buildings, but you have to search for it when you rent or buy. 
If you go to live in Algarve it might be a completely different situation, climate is much better there  Good luck!


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