Automatic Pool Covers in Castelló d’Empúries (Empuriabrava)

Castelló d’Empúries leads the 46,007 pools of the province of Girona

According to the Land Registry there are 3,066 uncovered pools registered in Castelló d’Empúries, which makes it number 1 of the 221 municipalities in the province of Girona. There were 2,749 in 2022: 317 more pools in four years, a little over 11%. The province adds up to 46,007 pools and has grown by 3,840 since 2022, 9.1%: it is the fastest-growing Catalan province. The provincial average is around 208 pools per municipality, so this municipality has almost fifteen times that average: some 72 per square kilometre.

To put it in context: behind it come Lloret de Mar (2,862), Calonge i Sant Antoni (2,623), L’Escala (2,159), Begur (2,039) and Roses (1,850); further down, Platja d’Aro (1,517) and Palafrugell (1,466). The provincial capital, Girona, records 1,143 pools: a municipality of 12,275 inhabitants has almost three times as many pools as the city of Girona. Catalonia has 204,648 pools across 936 municipalities — Barcelona 108,322, Girona 46,007, Tarragona 41,968 and Lleida 8,351 — and Girona is the second Catalan province. Beyond Catalonia, Madrid leads with 147,555, the highest in Spain, then Alicante with 132,495 and Málaga with 83,789.

The way Empuriabrava was laid out also leaves a veteran stock of pools: shells built decades ago, with dimensions that rarely match a catalogue. That is the job we are asked for most often, covering a pool that already exists.

A necessary word of warning about these figures. The Land Registry census under-records: there are undeclared pools, others that appear late and small shells that never get listed at all, so it is a floor and not a ceiling. Nor does it separate a private pool from a communal one, or from a hotel, campsite or resort pool, of which there are a fair few here: the 3,066 are every body of water in the municipality, not 3,066 houses with a pool. And the figure does not go below municipality level: there is no breakdown by settlement, so nobody can say how many are in Empuriabrava and how many in the nucli antic. When we divide the area up we do it by geography, never by pinning figures on a neighbourhood.

In practice, the family pool on its own plot is the one a cover pays back fastest. Closed, it cuts evaporation by 70% to 80%: in an 8×4 metre pool, tens of thousands of litres a year you do not have to replace. If there is a heat pump, consumption drops by 50% to 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 call us is safety: closed, the slats form a continuous surface that prevents access to the water, built to the NF P90-308 standard, a French standard, not a European one. That does not make it walkable or something to stand on, and you should not walk on it. You can see the province in pool covers in Girona and the rest of the region in pool covers in Catalonia.

Tramuntana, salt and leaves in the water: what the Empordà asks of a cover

You will not find invented temperature or rainfall averages here. The Servei Meteorològic de Catalunya has an automatic station inside the municipality, W1 “Castelló d’Empúries”, at 5 metres above sea level and in service since 14 March 2000: that is where the official annual figure comes from, with its name and its date. What we tell you about is what happens to the pool.

The first thing is the wind. The municipality and the comarca are exposed to the tramuntana, the characteristic wind of the Empordà and of north-eastern Catalonia, and the plain here is open: there is no hillside to break it. The practical advice is to close the cover before a wind episode and not to leave it halfway. And the rule that always applies: you operate it with the pool in sight and with nothing on top of it, because it has no alarm and no obstacle sensors, and it does not stop on its own.

The second is what that wind brings with it: leaves, grit and dust off the whole plain, and some of it ends up in the water; if the plot backs onto the dunes of la Rubina or Can Comes, add sand to the list. With the cover closed that dirt stays on top and comes off with a hose: the bottom stays clean and chemical use falls by around 35%. In a house that stands empty for weeks at a time, that is the difference between arriving and swimming and arriving and draining.

The third is the salt. The municipality has some seven kilometres of sand across three beaches, the Muga reaches the sea right here, in the Gulf of Roses, and in Empuriabrava the canal runs a few metres from the pool. That salt-laden air is why the whole structure, the shaft, the brackets and the fittings are AISI 316L stainless steel and why we never use aluminium: 316L contains molybdenum, which is what you ask of a steel in a marine environment. Maintenance is next to nothing: rinse with fresh water, above all after several days of wind. There are no rails or guides to grease.

And the fourth is winter. This is not the Levante coast: the Empordà is cooler and the pool stands idle for more months than on the Alicante or Málaga coast. Which is why a cover has two jobs here: in season it holds the heat and, out of season, it keeps the pool covered and clean.

Choosing a slat is not an aesthetic whim: PVC is the most common option, solar polycarbonate adds 6 or 7 °C during the day at no energy cost, and the transparent slat looks its best on a pool you see from the house. We set out the sections and weights in slat types, and the roller units in cover models. What we do not do is walk-on covers, telescopic covers, enclosures, domes, winter tarpaulins or thermal blankets: only automatic slatted covers, and since 2005.