The Gas Man Shouldn’t Cometh

Insult to injury. The injury has been the inexorable rise in price of energy, both gas and electricity. At least with electricity you don’t have to do anything, other than inspect your bills for the latest little stunt that Endesa is trying to pull. Gas, on the other hand, and by which in a Mallorcan context mainly means butane, is a different matter.

The insult to the injury of a bottle of butane now setting you back just shy of 15 euros is the antediluvian nature of the service. It is one which places the onus largely on the consumer. There are doubtless those who consider the fact that you, as a consumer, have to do the fetching and carrying as quaintly reassuring of a Mallorcan bygone era that is otherwise being lost amidst the other inexorable rise – that of development – but I am not one of them. You have to go and get the damn gas.

The further insult is the organisation, or lack of it, that currently obtains at the gas-collection “station” in Puerto Alcúdia.

The gas truck is located in a residential street near to the commercial port. It always has been located there. The organisation has tended to work reasonably enough, insofar as one accepts that one should have to even bend to the demand of this organisation of supply. But not since vehicles came to be parked all along what is a fairly narrow street.

For those unfamiliar with the routine, let me explain. You drive into the road, go past the gas truck, turn round and then come back and queue behind other cars. This is how it normally works. But the parking which has suddenly occurred makes the turning around a virtual impossibility. It can be done, but it ain’t easy, and is made less easy by the fact that one pavement is raised that high that you risk smashing your car front or back as you perform a twenty-three point turn.

But because of the cars that are parked, there is barely enough room to get past firstly the gas truck and secondly the line of cars that has managed to turn round. The result of all this, as I discovered yesterday, is chaos. It needs a copper, or some Repsol official, to be on traffic duty.

This gas “station” serves a pretty wide area. Years ago I made a foolish assumption that every town would have one, but this isn’t so. The demand on the Alcúdia station, and the truck has been known to run out, merely adds to what chaos can ensue.

There are of course other ways of getting the butane. Some petrol stations sell it, and then there is the home delivery. But this is also adding insult. You can no longer be sure when the truck’s going to turn up. You know the day, but as to the time?

In that quaint bygone era, you could leave your empty bottle out, put the money with it and the chap would perform the swap without your having to be there. Not now. You can try it, but chances are that while the money might have been accepted by the “butanero” and the bottle indeed swapped, someone will have come along and nicked the new, full bottle. So, to avoid the risk you have to make sure you’re in. And therefore wait until whatever time the chap appears. And it has also not been unknown for him to run out.

The point about all this is that the increases in price of butane take no account of the inconvenience to the consumer who also, never let it be forgotten, risks hernia or back injury when lifting the damn bottles. The service, such as it is, is a two-fingers-up, take-it-or-leave-it throwback to an era when you didn’t complain, when the consumer was expected to be meekly compliant.

The diffusion of natural gas cannot come quickly enough. The butane system is archaic and anachronistic. It is not a service for a modern economy and a modern society. Yes, there will be parts of Mallorca which will retain a reliance on butane, just as there are parts of the UK which demand butane or propane supply, but the persistence of the current system reinforces the fact that Mallorca’s infrastructure, woefully inadequate for years, has improved in leaps and bounds to the extent that modern systems of supply are now expected and should no longer be tolerated.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

All That Gas: Butane in Mallorca

The “butanero” delivered the other day. He does so only infrequently in summer, as there is only limited demand for gas. It was red hot, around two in the afternoon. How was he? “Bad,” he replied, with a laugh. Well, you try driving a butane-gas truck around in the heat, getting in and out of the cab, lugging a heavy bottle onto the kerb. Just shifting one bottle will induce a sweat, and he’s doing this time and time again.

One of these days, the butanero may well be no more, as there will be no more the chaps who try and come and check gas installations and who are always frauds. The butanero and butane may still rule the energy roost, but natural gas has now arrived (in Palma at any rate), and oil, solar and (expensive) straightforward mains supply electricity are alternatives. The demand for butane has been falling. A report from “The Diario” yesterday stated that sales have fallen by 20% since 2005. Even the cold winter past saw only a slight increase in sales over the norm.

Nevertheless, Mallorca and the Balearics form one of the most significant markets for butane in Spain. Demand may have fallen, but it is high compared with other regions, a reason being that, despite what can sometimes be very cold spells during the winter, the climate is such that it doesn’t justify the costs of installing other systems of heating. The cost, though, of the gas itself has generally risen over the past decade. It does sometimes go down, but at a current price of 12.50 euros it is at least a third more expensive than it was seven or eight years ago. Only when you go into the inner sanctums of some larger restaurants and see the lines of bottles hooked up, do you begin to appreciate how much the whole economy and not just homes rely on a mode of energy supply that seems ridiculously outdated.

“The Diario” also spoke to one of the chaps who attends the butane collection points. He’s been doing it for 15 years. Like the chap in Puerto Alcúdia, he is well known in his local community in Palma. Everyone knows the butane man, and he knows everyone and the inside of their car boots or the backs of their vans. For anyone who doesn’t know him, he resides, together with his truck of orangey-red bottles, on a road near to the commercial port. In summer he is quiet, but in winter he can attend to whole lines of cars which have to turn around on a road unsuited for such a manoeuvre in order to park up by the truck.

Butane supply is a relic, as is the method of distribution. For all the sophistication of Mallorca, an important part of its energy provision is via something that most Brits will only ever encounter if they go camping. One day it will surely cease to be, but there is something satisfyingly old-fashioned in having such community figures as the butane delivery man and the chap at his collection point.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

So Natural

You may have missed the news, but something momentous occurred in Mallorca three days ago. No, it wasn’t yet another letter about prices, nor was it a story about the litres per square metre of rain that have swamped the island. It was about some cubic metres – those of natural gas supply. 

 

Work on a pipeline from Dènia on the mainland started at the end of 2008. The first gas is now flowing into Mallorca. Initially, it will serve Palma and the immediate area. One day, you never know, it might be available across the island. There are infrastructure issues to be factored in, not least those to do with domestic supply, but the resultant advantages are clear – lower bills, cleaner air and greater safety. It is a significant development, yet one wonders why news of the arrival of the gas was not given greater prominence.

 

Gas supply in Mallorca is largely confined to butane and propane. This is about to change. And not before time. Butane can be dangerous – explosions are not unheard of. There is a danger with any gas supply, but with butane the risks are greater. Poorly maintained connections and installations; out-of-date tubing and heaters; ill-fitting mountings. Moreover, the reliance on butane makes domestic life akin to living in a permanent camp-site. There are the bottles, and there is the constant likelihood of the gas giving out during the cooking of a roast chicken, followed – nearly always it seems – by the hunting of a torch to go and disconnect the empty container while someone holds an umbrella over you or the wind batters the gas house door shut. There is also the sheer effort involved. Butane bottles are heavy. Expect the incidence of hernia operations to decline as a result of natural gas. The chiropractors of Mallorca must be cursing its arrival. Pity the poor bastards who live on the fifth floor and don’t have a lift. It’s like camping, but it’s also energy by Heath Robinson and from the manual of poor back health.

 

Butane is neither much cop when it comes to general health nor for the state of domestic walls. There is little less suited to Mallorca’s winter climate of dampness and humidity than butane, given the watery vapours that appliances pump out. The use of natural gas to also generate electricity will see a lowering in demand for that electricity as the dehumidifiers can be turned down to their minimum settings. 

 

The remoteness of Mallorca has been an issue, but the fact that it has taken until 2009 to get a pipeline functioning is a reminder of what, only relatively recently, was the inadequacy of infrastructure. Spain is still playing catch-up after the years of economic and civil engineering neglect. It is easy, though, to be critical of this johnny gas-come-lately. Britain has enjoyed natural gas for years. I can, however, still recall the strangely cosy, stale smell of my great aunt’s house with its boiler, fired by Calor. 

 

The arrival of the gas also signals what will eventually be the demise of the “butanero”, the gas man. And signal the end of the truck clanging its load and hooting its horn to announce its weekly appearance. Mallorca still has its quaint deliveries and domestic services – the whistling tin dustbin on wheels of the bloke who sharpens knives and garden tools is one, the wine-dispensing vendors of towns like Sineu another. In Britain, there used to be the knife-sharpener with his stone, the Corona man, the fish man, the laundry man, the paraffin man. Maybe there was also a butane man. Not that I remember one. But they have all been consigned to a history dump caused by shopping centres and supermarkets, efficient domestic appliances and central heating. That’s progress. And the butane man is likely to be looking for a new job.