Maltese winters are short but genuinely uncomfortable: 10–15°C outside, humid, and indoors — in unheated stone buildings — often colder-feeling than the street. The heating most households reach for is the most expensive option in the house. The cheapest one is already on the wall.
The heat-pump advantage, in one paragraph
An electric bar heater, fan heater or oil radiator converts one unit of electricity into one unit of heat. Your split AC in heating mode is a heat pump: it moves heat from outside air into the room, delivering three to four units of heat per unit of electricity in Maltese winter temperatures. Same warmth, roughly a third of the running cost. Malta's mild winters are ideal heat-pump territory — the efficiency collapse that northern climates worry about happens far below any temperature Malta sees.
The right winter settings
- Set 20–22°C. Chasing 26 in a poorly insulated Maltese room is expensive futility.
- Vanes down. The mirror image of the summer settings: hot air rises, so aim it at the floor and let it climb.
- Moderate fan, longer runs. Steady low heat beats blast-and-off cycles for both comfort and cost — inverter units excel at exactly this.
- Close the room. The same physics as summer; a heated room with an open stairwell door is a heated stairwell.
- Mind the humidity bonus: heating mode dries the air slightly — genuinely helpful against the winter condensation-and-mould cycle in our damp guide, and one more point against unvented gas heaters, which pour moisture (and worse) into the room as they burn.
The "is it broken?" moments of winter
The outdoor unit steams. Normal: in humid cold weather the outdoor coil frosts, and the unit periodically runs a defrost cycle — indoor airflow pauses, the outdoor unit hisses and releases a cloud of vapour, then heating resumes. Not smoke, not a fault.
It blows cool air at start-up. Most units wait until the coil is warm before running the fan properly. Give it two or three minutes before diagnosing.
Weaker heat than last winter. Same culprits as weak cooling — dirty filters and coils being first (see the not-cooling checklist, which applies in both directions). Units that cooled all summer enter winter with a season of dust on the filters; clean them at the season change. If cleaning does not fix it, book the service — heating exposes refrigerant shortfalls just like cooling does.
The economics of upgrading
If your flat still heats with plug-in electric heaters, the arithmetic is stark: a €500–900 installed split unit heating a living room all winter can save enough on electricity versus resistance heaters to repay itself in two or three winters — and then does the summer job too. Post the room details on Qabbad's AC page for installation quotes, or a pre-winter service for the units you have.
Frequently asked questions
Is it cheaper to heat with AC or electric heaters in Malta?
AC, by roughly a factor of three: heat-pump technology delivers three to four units of heat per unit of electricity in Maltese winter temperatures, while resistance heaters deliver one for one.
Why does my AC blow steam outside in winter?
That is the defrost cycle: the outdoor coil frosts in cold humid weather, and the unit periodically melts it, releasing a cloud of water vapour. Entirely normal — heating resumes within minutes.
What temperature should AC heating be set to in Malta?
20 to 22°C, vanes angled down, on steady low-to-auto fan. Every degree higher costs meaningfully more in a typical uninsulated Maltese room.