I’ll Light The Fire, You Place The Flowers

The weather so benign there were people in swimwear on the beach today hardly sounds like the introduction to a piece on winter heating, but it is appropriate. An absurdity of Mallorcan winters is that it is often warmer outside than inside. The reason for this is simple, and it is a reason that makes somewhat absurd some of the environmental and housing debate that I have referred to recently.

Much of Mallorca’s housing stock is inadequate for winter. Only relatively recently has there been a move towards anything like proper insulation and damp-coursing. The norm is neither. The old stone buildings, attractive and romantic that they may be, are usually freezing cold in winter. More modern buildings are similarly cold. The wooden-framed doors and windows in much housing are often sure makers of draughts.

Stone flooring, lack of carpets, large single-paned windows or terrace doors - these all make sense in summer, but in winter they are a nonsense. The solutions to the coldness of much of the housing are: expensive air-conditioning units, noxious and vapour-making butane heaters, ineffective electric radiators, wood-burning chimneys, oil-based central heating. Ah but a wood-burner is so cosy. Yes, if the space is enclosed and not subject to draught, but even then most of the heat escapes up the chimney anyway. Butane heaters - give off a fair amount of heat but also give off a significant amount of water, requiring an electricity-draining dehumidifier. The dampness of much property in winter also requires these dehumidifying monstrosities. Coal is shipped from South Africa to supply the power station for electricity that disappears through radiators and heaters that cannot compensate for the illogic of interior design, exterior thinness and draught holes.

None of the solutions is optimal unless housing design and materials are themselves optimal. That open-plan living-room with a marble stairway and an attractive large window heading towards the landing? Great in summer, a nightmare of lost energy in winter.

It occurs to me that perhaps some practical solutions need to be found - like insulation. Perhaps they are the unsexy side of the environmental and housing debate and, unless I have been missing something, they are not subjects widely addressed. I think it is about time they were.


HUGO AND THE KING
Imagine if you will a meeting of the Commonwealth heads of state. One of the less-savoury of these heads is mouthing off about something. The Queen, not amused, interrupts and tells the head to put one’s sock in it. Couldn’t happen, could it. The Queen maybe not, but King Juan-Carlos is not so reticent. To Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez at the Ibero-american gathering in Chile he said: “¿por qué no te callas?” (why don’t you shut up?). Brilliant. The King, I suspect, has said what many others would have liked to.


QUIZ
Yesterday - “Mercy Mercy Me”, Marvin Gaye. Today’s title? It’s the first line from a song about a house by a famous group.

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