Are you freezing?

It is fun to go to dinners and social activities and listen to people speaking. One question that is always being discussed during winter time, is what kind of heating people have in their houses. What kind of degrees they can get in their different rooms.
That is something you never, or vey seldom, hear people talk about in Sweden. Because in Sweden you seldom freeze indoors. Outside is a whole different story.

Sweden, cold outside but nice and warm inside

new salamander in one of our apartments

When we bought this farm their was no source of heating at all. There was a log burner, a so called salamander, that the vendors took when they left. On a stool their were just the pipes to the chimney left. We were very surprised and... cold. It was in April last year and you don´t think that you would freeze inside in Portugal in April, but we did. Our house is old with very thick walls and nice and cool in the summer but absolutely freezing in the winter. The doors and windows all have gaps and no insulation at all so that doesn´t help either.

We had to do something about it. So earlier this autumn we put in a recuperador which heats water that goes out to three radiators. Nowit is nice and warm......as long as you feed the log burner with wood. And we do. At least as long as we are awake. Then it cools off quite quickly because of cracks everywhere and bad insulation. This morning it was so cold in the livingroom/kitchen so I had to sit

buying wood by the ton

with an eletric blanket wrapped around my knees. The thermometer showed 14 degrees. In our bedroom it was almost a tropical heat with 15 degrees.

electric blanket

So what do people do to keep warm? Warm slippers, wooly sweaters and carpets on the floor.

a new find, lined "crocs"

wooly slippers

our new wonderful recuperador

Well many Portuguese people don´t have any other source of heating but a log burner. Sometimes they cannot afford to buy wood for it so then they just freeze.

And people say to us "it must be wonderful to move to a warm country" And we agree....

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book to when it gets a bit warmer

Ase