Until recently, it was believed in Portugal that it was possible to live in houses without heating and without external insulation of buildings. This is true. The climate allows it. But it is much more comfortable to live in houses where there is both external insulation and heating.

The most efficient heating option in terms of energy consumption is considered to be air conditioning. As for water heating from a gas boiler, due to the rise in gas prices, this heating option is becoming quite expensive for many consumers.

However, in this article we will try to focus on the situation when the house in which repairs are needed is relatively old, there is no heating and there is no possibility to install an air conditioner.

Which heating option should you choose in winter?

You can install electric convectors, but they consume about 2 kW of energy. This is a lot. You can install oil floor heaters. But they also consume about 2 kW. And both of these options take up space. The appearance of these radiators does not always match the interior.

If the renovation is global and you want to have a warm base, that is, warm floors, then you can groove an electric cable into the existing screed, which will heat the floor covering laid on top of it. And thus the room will be heated. However, this option also consumes quite a lot of electricity in addition to the complexity of its implementation.

We believe that the most acceptable option in terms of aesthetics, energy efficiency and comfort is a film infrared warm floor, which is laid on top of the underlay directly between the laminate (or quartz vinyl) and the concrete floor. The principle of operation of an infrared warm floor is that it heats up objects located on top of it and due to this the room becomes warm. At the same time, such a floor consumes significantly less energy, and the heat is distributed evenly throughout the room and there is no such discomfort as, for example, from water radiators or air conditioners, when one area of ​​the room is very warm, and another is cold. The power of such floors must be calculated separately in each specific case. But we can safely say that they are approximately 6 times more effective compared to the above options.

In terms of energy consumption, an infrared heated floor can be as efficient as an air conditioner, which operates on the principle of a heat pump to provide maximum energy savings. At the same time, it does not take up any space, and the heated floor sensor, which allows you to make the necessary adjustments, can be placed in any convenient place in the apartment.