The phrase "how not to freeze in Portugal?" may seem ridiculous to many, but you don't want to joke once you find yourself in a typical Portuguese apartment in winter. If you come to Portugal from colder or northern countries, you are probably used to central heating and the fact that you can safely wear a T-shirt indoors in winter. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with Portugal because there is no central heating in the country, and everyone heats their house and apartment as best they can.
You can rent or buy premium housing with underfloor heating, air conditioning, and even heating if you have unique financial resources. However, in this case, in addition to expensive housing, you will have to pay from several hundred to a thousand euros every month for space heating because utilities in the country are pretty costly.
If you live in the most ordinary Portuguese apartment, as I do, then in order not to freeze, you will need special devices and a clear understanding of what works on the market and what doesn't. In this article, I will share my personal experience and some links to specific appliances that will help you stay warm in the winter in Portugal.
Are you cold? This is fine!
It's worth starting with the fact that I am a person who constantly freezes everywhere. I don't know what this is connected with, maybe with my "elegant" physique, but I always carry warm clothes with me, and I get cold in Portugal even in summer due to the strong winds that are frequent guests on local beaches. I will stop freezing only when I move to a tropical island with endless summer and no strong and cold winds. So in this regard, I'm the best person to advise on how to keep warm in the winter in Portugal.
I arrived in Portugal 8 years ago as an illegal immigrant. I was only 24 years old. Of course, I didn't have the money to rent premium housing, so I rented the most ordinary Portuguese apartments without heating and air conditioning.
My first winter in the country was the most terrible. I was constantly shaking from the cold, despite five layers of clothing. I didn't have a thermometer then, and I don't know exactly what the temperature was in the room, but I think it was around 15-17 degrees. The most hated thing for me was going to the shower because it was even colder in a room with tiles, and I had to make a mighty effort to take off my clothes.
Eight years have passed since that moment, and my body has adapted to low temperatures. Of course, it took a couple of years to adjust, but if before I was shaking at 18 degrees in the room, now at the same temperature, I feel pretty standard.
Secondly, I have tried many methods and electrical appliances, and after eight years in Portugal, I have found something that works. Before I tell you what I recommend buying for comfortable heating in Portugal, let's talk about what doesn't work.
This doesn't work
Of course, at first, I tried to save money, as many people do. So my path to space heating began with purchasing the cheapest heaters that can be bought for a couple of tens of euros in any electronics store in Portugal.
As I remember, my first heater in Portugal looked like the picture below — it blew hot air and smelled of burnt plastic.
Then I tried to buy an infrared heater, as in the picture below.
A little later, I bought an oil heater that looked like a battery.
Of course, I wanted to save as much money as possible, and I believed that electrical appliances with a price of up to 50 euros could be effective, but trust me, that doesn't work.
They heat a tiny radius, and it will be tough for them to warm even a medium-sized room. In addition to being inefficient, they also waste a considerable amount of electricity so that you could end up with a hefty utility bill at the end of the month.
If you rent a room where all utilities are included, and you think you can buy such a heater and turn it on 24/7, then be very careful. I know a few stories where roommates or the landlord (who pays the utilities) found out about this, and the situation ended very badly when a person with a permanently running heater was asked to pay an additional 500 or more euros for utilities or was threatened with eviction or physical violence. So if you rent an all-inclusive room, keep in mind that this doesn't mean the constant use of heaters, because the Portuguese themselves never do this.
Returning to my story, I will say that in my first rented apartment in winter, black mold appeared on the ceiling in the bathroom. I panicked and complained to the landlord, to which he agreed to paint the top, but only on the condition that I shower with the door open and the windows open (no matter how strange it may sound). Thank God I lived alone and could follow his advice, and the mold stopped forming on the ceiling. Subsequently, I bought an inexpensive dehumidifier for 100 euros, as in the picture below. It worked well but could have been better, and I had to turn it on all night in the bathroom after a shower.
A little later, I will tell you about more modern and efficient models of dehumidifiers.
In addition to electrical appliances, I invested in winter clothes. Portuguese shopping centers had a great selection of winter knitted sweaters for literally 20 euros, and at first, I actively bought them to keep warm. The problem is that 99% of things in Portuguese mass market stores are synthetic and consist of 100% acrylic, and not only are they not warm, but after the first or second wash, such a thing turns into an unsightly rag that can only be thrown away. So despite the love of the Portuguese for stores like Primark, I would not recommend buying winter clothes there, because you pay to wear this item only a few times.
Things that help to keep warm in the winter in Portugal
Well, we have already talked about what doesn't work and what I don't recommend for purchase, and now let's talk about what works and what I use myself.
Heater - should be only high-quality, expensive and only convection (convector). This is very important because, having tried so many types, I know such devices work best because they use convection flows to heat and circulate air. As a result, even a large room can be heated in 10-30 minutes, and the air warms up evenly so that even when the heater is turned off, the space remains warm for some time.
I use the Xiaomi intelligent convector heater, which you can buy for 139 euros in the official store in Portugal.
I can control this heater through the application on my phone - I select the desired room temperature, and the heater will heat the air to the set temperature. It turns off and turns on again as soon as the temperature decreases. It is very convenient and works 100 times more efficiently than the heaters I wrote about in the first part of the article.
I also use a modern and powerful dehumidifier that can reduce the humidity in a room by 10-30% in a couple of hours. Unlike my old KUNFT dehumidifier, it can be left on for 12 hours. I use the De'Longhi Tasciugo AriaDry Light DNS65 model, and in addition to the air ionization function, it also has a drying function. So this device can dry your washed clothes overnight without any problems.
This dehumidifier costs 330 euros, and you can buy it, for example, in the official store of this brand in Portugal.
Furthermore, as my work is sedentary and I spend all day at the office desk, I began to notice that my feet were cold, and no woolen socks helped.
Someday, I found the perfect solution and bought a German foot warmer on the Spanish Amazon. It is safe for your health (so don't save money buying a Chinese equivalent), and it has three temperature modes, with your feet will be constantly warm, and you will turn on a conventional heater much less often. You can buy this model here for 76 euros.
We also purchased a small infrared heater for the bathroom. It is hung over the door and helps to warm the cold tiled room before going to the shower. I turn it on 5 minutes before taking a shower and feel quite comfortable. Taking off clothes in a bathroom is real now and doesn't seem cruel. There are a lot of such heaters for bathrooms, and they cost around 20-50 euros. An example of such a model can be found here and in the picture below.
The clothing issue is also important because by having quality things, you don't have to constantly turn on the heaters and subsequently pay tremendous electricity bills.
It is tough to find high-quality warm clothes made of wool or cashmere in Portugal, except you can find something similar in Massimo Dutti or United Colors Of Benetton stores, but the price there will be impressive.
I am a big fan of the Japanese store Uniqlo, and I buy all winter clothes for life in Portugal only there. Unfortunately, this store is not available in Portugal, but the European online store Uniqlo works perfectly and, for about 10 euros, will promptly deliver your order to any corner of Portugal.
Just compare - above, I gave an example of a 100% synthetic sweater from the Primark store for 14 euros, and below, you see an example of a thick 100% wool sweater from Uniqlo for 34 euros. The Primark sweater can be thrown away after the first wash, and the Uniqlo wool sweaters I wear for years, tidying them up from time to time with this device to eliminate pilling, and even after many years, these sweaters and, in general, all clothes from Uniqlo look like new.
Also, this brand has a unique line of thermal underwear HEATTECH, and I also actively use it for the coldest winter days in Portugal.
Remember to consider the importance of good quality and warm clothes in Portugal. This will help you save on your energy bills. If possible, bring quality woolen clothes from your country. Otherwise, the Uniqlo store may be a democratic option for purchasing them.
How to use these tools correctly?
In addition to purchasing things and electrical appliances from the list above, it is essential to understand how to use them correctly.
Below I will briefly describe what my day looks like in terms of heating during the winter season in Portugal.
Procedure for the workspace:
- I wake up and wear warm clothes or thermal underwear from Uniqlo.
- I take humidity and temperature measurements in my office, which I ventilate daily and where I will spend all day. For this purpose, I use this one device from Xiaomi. For example, now, in November, the humidity in the room in the morning is more than 80%, and the temperature fluctuates around 18-19 degrees. And this is even though our double-glazed house was built after the 2000s.
- Such indicators are not typical, and I immediately turn on the dehumidifier. In 1-2 hours, it reduces the humidity to the necessary 50-60% from the point of view of WHO, and the temperature in the room only due to the operation of the dehumidifier rises to 20-22 degrees. With my foot warmer, this is already enough for comfortable work in the office. Still, on frigid days, of course, I additionally turn on the general convector heater.
Procedure for the bathroom:
- 5-10 minutes before taking a shower, turn on the wall heater to increase the temperature in the room. Then it can be turned off.
- After (or during) taking a shower, I turn on the dehumidifier at full power, setting the timer for 2 hours. During this time, the dehumidifier can reduce the humidity to the required level and dry all the towels, so there is simply no need for a wall-mounted heated towel rail.
Procedure for the bedroom:
- I always open the windows in the morning and ventilate the bedroom for several hours.
- A couple of hours before bed, I turn on the dehumidifier and bring the humidity level up to 50%. After that, I turn on the bedroom heater for a short time only on the coldest days because the dehumidifier helps to increase the temperature in the room by a couple of degrees, which is often enough.
- At night we sleep under this duvet, in warm pajamas and socks, and only with an open door so that condensation doesn't form on the glass and mold follows it.
In the hallway, kitchen, and other underused rooms, there is no need to use either a dehumidifier or a heater unless you have mold and need to control the humidity level.
How much does it all cost?
As you understand, in addition to the cost of buying quality electrical appliances and clothes, you will also have to pay hefty bills for electricity, from which dehumidifiers, heaters, and other appliance work.
How much would it cost per month? First, let's look at the statistics of my payments to EDP over the past year.
The screenshot from my account below shows that if in the summer (May, June) we paid around 50 euros per month just for electricity, then in December this amount reached 150 euros and stayed at this level until about March, after which the amount of payments for electricity has become less than 100 euros.
We are a family of two, and we both work from home, so we are in the apartment 24/7. And we have the most comfortable conditions at home - no high humidity, no mold, the temperature in our offices is around 20-22 degrees, and we don't sit wearing jackets and gloves in the apartment.
Someone prefers to save money and doesn't mind wearing gloves, a hat, and a down jacket at home (as many Portuguese do), but this is unacceptable for me.
When in the first year after immigration to Portugal realized that utilities in the country are so expensive and it's so uncomfortable to be in an apartment in winter, I just said to myself: "Either work and earn enough to heat the apartment and live in comfortable conditions, or leave this place, because living in an uncomfortable place and constantly suffering is not an option."
I know that situations are different, and each person has other priorities. Still, I'm not sure that it's worth making such sacrifices and living in a country where you will freeze in an apartment, suffering from mold and high humidity, putting your health at risk, you will only take a shower for 3 minutes, and only by the hour, and never allow yourself to fill the bathroom because it will be an unaffordable luxury for you. For me, the issue of heat in the apartment is not a whim, but an essential aspect of safety, so when I arrived in Portugal at the age of 24, I tried my best, worked, and, as a result, earned decent heating for my apartment.
I set new goals for myself, and of course, I would like to live in a premium-class apartment with underfloor heating, central heating, and air conditioning in the future. You and I can achieve this through hard work and constant self-development.
I wish you good luck, and don't freeze during winter in Portugal!
