Automatic pool covers in Almuñécar and La Herradura

Almuñécar has 2,140 pools on the Catastro register

According to the Spanish land registry, the Catastro, there are 2,140 uncovered pools registered in Almuñécar, 91 more than in 2022. That puts the municipality second among the 174 in the province of Granada, behind only the city of Granada, which registers 2,188. Put another way: Almuñécar has more registered pools than Nerja (1,838), Fuengirola (1,583) or Torremolinos (1,485), Costa del Sol towns far better known for their residential tourism. The province as a whole adds up to 40,956 pools and has gained 3,278 since 2022, 8.7 % more in four years.

That the second municipality in the province should be a town on the Costa Tropical rather than one in the Granada metropolitan area has a simple explanation, and a very visible one on the ground: here the dominant form of housing is the detached house or villa on its own plot, spread across the hillsides of Cotobro and Velilla-Taramay, across Punta de la Mona and across the scattered settlement of the valleys, and a plot ends up with a pool on it. On top of that there is an ageing pool stock, shells built decades ago to sizes that rarely match a catalogue, which is exactly the job we are asked for most: covering a pool that already exists.

A necessary word of caution about these numbers, so that nobody reads more into them than is there. The Catastro register under-records: it is a floor, not a ceiling. There are undeclared pools, others that appear late and small shells that never get recorded at all, so the real figure is higher than the published one. The Catastro also does not distinguish a private pool from a communal one, from a hotel's or from a club's: the 2,140 in Almuñécar are all the registered bodies of water in the municipality, not 2,140 houses with a pool. And the figure does not break down below municipality level: there is no official split by centre, so there is no telling how many are in La Herradura and how many in the old town. When we divide the area up by centre we do it by geography and by our own work, never by attributing figures to a neighbourhood or an urbanisation.

In practice, that profile of a family pool on its own plot is the one that pays a cover back best, and here the argument is not an aesthetic one. A slatted cover, closed, cuts evaporation by between 70 % and 80 %: on an 8 × 4 metre pool that is between 15,000 and 25,000 litres a year that do not have to be replaced, which on the Costa Tropical is no small matter. If there is a heat pump, the consumption of the system falls by between 50 % and 60 %, and with solar polycarbonate slats the water gains 6 or 7 °C during the day at no cost at all. The other reason people ring us is safety: closed, the slats form a continuous surface that prevents access to the water and holds 100 kg in line with NF P90-308, which is a French standard, not a European one. It is worth saying plainly: that does not make it a walk-on cover, it is not something to stand on, and nobody should walk across it. You can see the whole province on our pool covers in Granada page.

Salt, subtropical sun and a sierra for a screen: what Almuñécar asks of a cover

Almuñécar's climate is its best selling point and, at the same time, what asks most of a cover. The Almijara and Cázulas ranges act as a screen to the north and hold back the cold winds, while the sea works as a thermostat: the result is a subtropical microclimate with more than 320 days of sun a year and lows that rarely drop below ten or twelve degrees. That is not brochure copy, it is agronomy: it is why avocado, custard apple and mango are grown here in the valleys of the Río Verde and the Río Seco, crops that would not survive hard winters.

For a pool, that means the swimming season really is a long one, and that a cover earns its keep over more months of the year than almost anywhere else in Spain. But it also means more hours of radiation on the slats. A badly chosen slat fades and turns brittle within a few summers, especially on the south-facing terraces of Cotobro or Punta de la Mona. We work with profiles stabilised against ultraviolet light and we study the actual orientation of each pool before recommending a finish and a colour.

The second thing is the salt. Almuñécar is quite literally perched over the water: the Maro-Cerro Gordo Cliffs Natural Area closes the municipality off to the west and Punta de la Mona splits it in two. That salt-laden breeze is the reason the whole structure, the shaft, the supports and all the fixings are AISI 316L stainless steel and not some other material. Upkeep, on the other hand, is next to nothing: rinse the slats, the shaft and the supports with fresh water, especially after several days of levante. There are no rails or guides to clean or grease, because the slats float on the water.

And the third is what comes down off the sierra and out of the valleys. Fine dust, leaves from the subtropical vegetation and material washed down from around the Río Verde and the Río Seco end up in the pool every time the wind turns inland. With the cover closed that dirt stays on top and the bottom stays clean: it counts for a great deal in a municipality where many owners leave the house shut for half the season. Safety counts too, and it is the other real reason: a sheet of rigid slats resting on the coping stone is a physical barrier against a fall, not simply a saving on cleaning.

With all of that, choosing a slat in Almuñécar is not a matter of taste. PVC does well in the more sheltered pools of the old town and the outlying houses; solar polycarbonate makes use of those clear days to gain temperature and stretch the season in the villas on the hillside and in La Herradura; the transparent one looks its best in pools with a sea view, and here there are a great many. We explain it all, with sections and weights, on our slat types page, and the shaft systems on cover models. What we do not do, so that there is no misunderstanding, is walk-on covers, telescopic covers, pool enclosures, domes, winter tarpaulins or bubble blankets: automatic slatted covers only, and since 2005.