What do the Portuguese house terms actually mean?

Half the difficulty of getting something fixed in a Portuguese house is not knowing what the thing is called. This is a plain glossary. Each entry stands on its own, so you can read only the one you need.

Esquentador

An instantaneous gas water heater, wall mounted, usually in the kitchen or on a service balcony. It heats water only while a hot tap is running, which is why it needs a minimum water flow to fire at all and why low pressure alone can stop it lighting. Most Portuguese homes have one rather than a boiler and a hot water tank. It runs on bottled gas, piped gas or, in some buildings, mains gas.

Termoacumulador

An electric storage cylinder. It heats a tank of water and keeps it hot, so it fails differently from an esquentador: warm water that runs out quickly points at the element or the thermostat, and a tripping RCD often means the element has started leaking to earth. Many houses have both, one serving the kitchen and one the bathrooms.

Dureza da água

Water hardness, expressed in Portugal in mg/L of calcium carbonate. It is not uniform in the Algarve and the difference is large enough to matter. EMARP published 30 mg/L CaCO3 for the Portimão supply system in the first quarter of 2026; the municipality of Albufeira published 150 to 170 mg/L for its surface water zone in the first quarter of 2025; Loulé states its borehole zones are hard to very hard without giving a figure. Appliance manuals often use French degrees instead, where 1 °F equals 10 mg/L CaCO3.

Estores and the caixa de estores

Estores are the external roller shutters on almost every Portuguese window. The caixa de estores is the box above the window where the rolled up shutter and its mechanism live. It is worth knowing about for two reasons: it is where almost every shutter fault is diagnosed and repaired, and it is one of the commonest thermal weak points in a Portuguese wall, because the box is often poorly sealed and vents straight into the room.

Alvenaria

Solid masonry construction: brick or block, rendered. It matters because plumbing and electrical runs are usually chased directly into it rather than run in accessible voids. That is why a leak in an Algarve house so often appears as damp on a wall some distance from the actual pipe, and why the repair starts with finding it rather than fixing it.

Terraço, platibanda and rufo

A terraço is a flat roof or roof terrace, which is the standard roof in much of the region. The platibanda is the low parapet wall around its edge. A rufo is the flashing where the waterproof layer turns up and is sealed. Almost every flat roof leak starts at one of those junctions rather than in the middle of the surface, and it starts showing in the wet quarter, when IPMA’s 1991 to 2020 normals put 48.7 per cent of Faro’s annual rainfall.

Caleira and tubo de queda

The gutter and the downpipe. On a flat roof the equivalent is the ralo, the terrace outlet. All three want clearing before the end of September, because IPMA’s normals give an average of 7.9 days a year with 10 mm or more of rain in October, November and December alone. ARS Algarve also lists blocked gutters in its mosquito prevention advice, since standing water is standing water whether it is on a roof or in a bucket.

Fossa séptica

A septic tank. In the municipality of Lagoa, whose regulation is typical of the Algarve pattern, mains drainage counts as available when the public system is within 20 metres of the property boundary; outside that, the owner has the right to ask the utility to collect the sludge. The same regulation sets a measurable emptying trigger: the sludge must be removed whenever its level is within 30 cm of the bottom of the outlet baffle. Rules vary by municipality.

ARH

The Administração da Região Hidrográfica, the river basin authority. It appears in a homeowner’s life in one specific place: where a septic tank’s treated effluent is discharged to soil or to water, the Lagoa regulation requires the owner to apply to the ARH for a discharge licence. It is a step people routinely discover after the work is done.

Pladur

Plasterboard. Pladur is a brand name that became the everyday word for it, the way Hoover did in English. It matters in an older Algarve house because a pladur wall or ceiling behaves nothing like the alvenaria around it: fixings need the right anchor, a leak spreads through it fast and stains, and it is usually the cheapest surface in the house to make good after a repair.

Recuperador de calor

A closed wood burning insert fitted into an existing fireplace. It matters more here than the coastal weather suggests. The 2021 census found 15.5 per cent of Algarve main homes have an open fireplace or a recuperador, but the range runs from 5.4 per cent in Vila Real de Santo António to 52.2 per cent in Monchique. Inland and in the serra it is normal heating; on the coast it is often decorative.

Potência contratada

The contracted electrical power of the property, in kVA. ERSE, the energy regulator, lists 13 steps from 1.15 kVA to 41.4 kVA and states that the two most common in Portugal are 3.45 kVA and 6.9 kVA. Single phase installations typically stop at 10.35 kVA; above that the installation is three phase. It is the number that decides whether an oven, an induction hob and a water heater can run at the same time, and whether a car charger can be added at all.

Potência requisitada

The power the property was actually wired and connected for, set at construction. ERSE is explicit that the contracted power cannot exceed it. It is the difference between “I want more power” and “this building can supply more power”, and it is the first thing to check before planning anything electrically ambitious.

Controlo prévio

Prior control: the umbrella term for licensing or notification by the câmara municipal before building work. Since 1 January 2024 a large category of interior alteration work is exempt from it, where the work improves, does not harm or does not affect the stability structure and does not change the façade or roof shape or remove façade azulejos. Exemption is from the procedure, never from the rules themselves.

Obras de escassa relevância urbanística

Works of minor urban significance: a defined list in the national planning regime that is exempt from prior control. It includes, among others, annexes not exceeding 2.2 metres in height or 10 m² in area and not fronting a public road, boundary walls up to 1.8 metres, garden greenhouses under 3 metres and up to 20 m², and solar panels within stated limits. Two limits travel with the list: it never applies to classified buildings or their protection zones, and municipal regulations may be stricter.

Termo de responsabilidade

A statement of responsibility signed by a qualified technician. Where works affect a building’s stability structure, one is required declaring that the works taken as a whole improve or do not harm that structure, and an inspector may ask to see it. It is the document that makes an exempt job a documented job, and it is worth knowing whether your builder is producing one before the work starts rather than after.

Livro de Reclamações

The complaints book, created by Decreto-Lei 156/2005, which every consumer facing service provider in Portugal must make available. Since 2018 the electronic format is mandatory for the sectors covered by Decreto-Lei 74/2017, so it is usually a link now. A complaint filed through it reaches the sector regulator, which is what makes it different from a bad review.

Orçamento

A quote. Two things are worth asking about every Portuguese orçamento before agreeing to it: whether IVA is included, and whether making good after the work is in the price or arranged separately. Two quotes that look far apart are often the same number counted differently. For how a request turns into one, see home repairs in the Algarve.

Where these facts come from

Water hardness: EMARP, Portimão water quality control data, first quarter 2026; Município de Albufeira, water quality control data, first quarter 2025; Câmara Municipal de Loulé, Abastecimento de Água. Hardness scale and unit conversion: SMAS da Maia technical note. Rainfall: IPMA, Normais Climatológicas 1991-2020, Faro. Fireplaces: INE, Censos 2021. Septic tanks: Município de Lagoa, Regulamento Municipal do Serviço de Saneamento de Águas Residuais Urbanas. Contracted power: ERSE. Planning exemptions: Decreto-Lei 555/99 as amended by Decreto-Lei 10/2024. Complaints book: Decreto-Lei 156/2005 and Decreto-Lei 74/2017.