Newcomers are often shocked: Portuguese homes have no central heating, thin walls and single glazing, so they feel cold and damp all winter. The usual fix — plug-in electric heaters — works but is expensive to run. The cheapest comfortable option is a heat pump (the same unit as your summer AC): it heats a room for about a third of an electric heater's cost, and helps dry the damp. Here's how the options really compare.
Brought to you by the local team behind AC Rental Lisbon — years of keeping Lisbon homes and apartments comfortable.
Lisbon winters aren't that cold outside — but inside is another story. Three reasons.
Almost no Portuguese apartment has central heating. Homes were built for summer, not winter, so there's nothing built in to warm them — you heat room by room.
Older stock has little insulation and single-glazed windows, so heat escapes fast and cold creeps in. The indoor temperature tracks the outdoor one closely.
Cold walls plus humid air mean condensation, damp patches and mould — the classic Portuguese-winter complaint. Heating that also dries the air fixes the root cause, not just the symptom.
What each option is like to live with, and to pay for, over a Portuguese winter.
Cheap to buy, warms instantly — but only the spot in front of it, and it's the most expensive to run. Fine as a top-up, painful as your main heat.
Gentler, more even heat that lingers — but slow to warm up and still expensive electricity. Better for a bedroom than a whole home.
Portable and off-grid, but it adds moisture to already-damp air, needs ventilation and means lugging gas bottles. Cheaper fuel, real downsides.
Higher upfront cost, but by far the cheapest to run — about a third of an electric heater — heats the whole room fast, dries the damp, and cools in summer. The all-round winner.
For most Lisbon homes staying year-round, a heat pump pays back over a few winters versus running electric heaters.
Ready to sort winter properly? See heat pump installation in Lisbon, weigh it up in is AC worth it?, or check the installation costs.
Because they're built for summer, not winter: almost no central heating, thin walls and single glazing. Lisbon's outdoor winter isn't extreme, but with nothing to retain heat, indoor temperatures track the cold outside — so a flat can feel colder inside than you'd ever expect from the forecast.
To run, a heat pump (your AC in heating mode) is cheapest by a wide margin — it delivers about three units of heat per unit of electricity, roughly a third of an electric heater's cost. Electric fan and oil heaters are cheap to buy but expensive to run; gas is off-grid but adds damp and hassle.
Yes. A modern split is a heat pump and works both ways. In Lisbon's mild winter it heats a room quickly and comfortably, and it keeps working well even on cold mornings. Many people who install for summer cooling end up valuing the winter heating just as much.
Yes. By warming the walls and, in dry mode, removing moisture from the air, it cuts the condensation that feeds mould — the root of the classic Portuguese-winter damp problem. For severe damp we can also advise a dedicated dehumidifier alongside it.
Usually not, and it's rarely practical to retrofit. A heat pump gives you built-in heating room by room without pipework or a boiler: a single wall unit for one room, or a multi-split to heat several rooms from one outdoor unit. It's the standard modern solution for Portuguese apartments.
For the same warmth, roughly one third of the running cost. An electric heater turns one unit of electricity into one unit of heat; a heat pump moves heat rather than making it, delivering about three units per unit of electricity. Over a winter, that difference adds up quickly.
Tell us the room or the home and we'll size a heat pump that heats it for a fraction of an electric heater's cost — and dries the damp while it's at it. Minutes to reply on WhatsApp.
Tell us your place and we'll size a heat pump that heats, dries and cools — then send an honest quote within one working day.