I am going to look at the numbers and try to give you an idea of what you can expect to pay each month.
Water:
The water that comes out of your kitchen taps may not taste too great, but it is safe to drink even though most people prefer to buy the bottled stuff instead. You will be using it to wash though, and water use for two people will probably cost around €25 per month.
Electricity:
It’s important to note that if you are using your air-con regularly, you are going to burn through the kilowatts, which will in turn burn a hole in your wallet very quickly. You could plan on adding an extra 50-150% on top of your regular bill if the AC is on all the time. It’s cheaper to give a blast of the AC for 5 or 10 minutes, and then use portable fans to circulate the air.
This site will help you to calculate exactly what you owe for both Water and Electricity, and thus is extremely useful.
Gas:
Just to be clear about this folks – ‘gas’ here is not the stuff you put in your car, it’s the propane-type stuff that comes in cylinders. (Hope I didn’t get too technical for you there). A lot of homes in Malta will use gas for heating and/or cooking. I think it’s fair to say that it’s quite an old-fashioned system of delivery though. Trucks piled with gas cylinders trundle through the streets on pre-ordained mornings, horns blaring to alert those in need. You then have to scurry downstairs, stop them, and ask them to haul it into your house. Otherwise – more conventionally – you can go to the Liquigas site and order a delivery from there. It’s probably easier that way. Anyway, our friendly landlord gave us a full 12K cylinder for our oven when we moved in and that lasted almost exactly 3 months.
Here’s a general guide to current cylinder prices:
10KG – €14
12KG – €17*
15KG – €21
25KG – €36
*12KG is the most popular size used in Malta.
So in summary, here’s an estimated monthly utility bill for two people sharing a 2 bed apartment (this is without using air-con/heaters) based on what we paid:
Water €25
Electricity €25
Gas Oven €6
Total €56 per month
Hopefully this will be of some help to those of you thinking of buying or renting in Malta.
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Thanks, this is very helpful. But what do you recommend for use in heating if AC is too expensive?
As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as cold weather, only bad clothes. Or something like that. So my advice is to tough it out with some nice thick blankets.