This is a question we have been asked so many times that we decided to edit a specific page for this issue.

Let’s start with a fact: you can’t regulate heating on your own.

This may sound odd and could be a lot different from what you are used to in your home country, but heating in Italy is entrirely codified in an anti-pollution law enfoced since 1991 (if you want to investigate and use a lot of Google Translate if you don’t speak italian, search for  law n. 10/1991 or follow D.P.R. 412/1993).

The country is divided into 6 different climate zones, each of them having different calendar stating when heating can be switched on and off. Milan is in zone number 3, so heating goes on the 15th of October and off the 15th of April.

Secondary, this law also defines how much you can heat up your flat.

Maximum 20 degrees (+2 degrees tolerance) for no more than 14 hours a day. In the other 10 hours heating is off.

Since 2022, the maximum is 19 degrees (+2 degrees tolerance) for no more than 13 hours a day. In the other 11 hours heating is off.

Also, thermostats or thermostatic valves are mandatory.

And this leads to:

  • flats with centralized heating (95% of the flats in Milan Urban Area) normally have 2 heating cycles: from 5 to 11 am and from 5 pm to midnight. This may vary a bit according to decisions taken by the bulding manager (and by Municipality in case of severe weather) but can’t be overridden for a single flat\user and must follow the general rule stated above (19 degrees\13 hours). If you open all windows at 2 am in an icy night in February, your flat will stay icy till the heating cycle begins at 5 am.
  • flats with autonomous heating (the other 5%) do follow the same rule, with one difference: it’s ok to set a minimum temperature to be kept in the “other” 11 hours of 18 degrees. If you open all windows at 2 am during an icy night in February, your flat will be kept at 18 degrees minimum (if the heating system can keep pace…).
  • all air con devices can’t be used for heating if gas\centralized heating is present (yes, there are radio sensors in all flats attached to radiators recording how you behave.. it’s not “us”, it’s the law .. and no, they most likely don’t have heat pumps)
  • if radiators are cold at 6 pm this doesn’t mean heating is not working, but it just means the maximum temperature is already reached and thermostatic valves (or thermostats) shut down the device to keep the temperature constant during heating cycle. They will reheat if and when the temperature drops below the mark.
  • if you can’t see any radiator this doesn’t mean we sold you a flat without heating as floor heating was pretty popular during the 60s and 70s over here.
  • if you spot a gas heater or a thermostat, dont play with it. Believe us, 99.9% of the times you will switch it off completely, misconfigure, decrease the temperature of the heating water flow to the radiators, set it to summer mode as you don’t realize that funny word “estate” on the display in italian means “oh nice, it’s august and you don’t need heating then” and so on. So, don’t. Please.

Nobody wants to save money on gas or electricity or freeze guests. If you are used to have 30 degrees at home, this is just someting you can’t reach in a civil flat over here.

All flats are equipped with a winter douvet and in real life temperature will stay around 19 degrees at night in the worste scenario during a snow storm.

And they are pretty rare, anyway 🙂