Automatic Pool Covers in San Pedro de Alcántara

Which cover suits a pool in San Pedro?

San Pedro sits between the Guadalmina and the Guadaiza, right on the water, and it has the mild Mediterranean climate of the western Costa del Sol: long warm summers, gentle winters and a great deal of sun. The natural swimming season already runs from roughly June to October, and an automatic cover is what stretches it at both ends — closed overnight, the water holds on to most of the heat it gained during the day.

In high summer the argument changes from warmth to water. With strong sun and the dry poniente wind, an uncovered pool loses a surprising amount of water every day, and every time you top it up you dilute the chemistry and have to dose again. Closing the cover when the pool is not in use breaks that cycle, and the saving shows up on both the water and the chemical bill across a season.

Being this close to the beach has a cost, and it is salt. Rollers, axles and fixings take far more punishment on the front line than they do inland, and a cover that would still look immaculate in Toledo can start giving trouble here within a few years if it was not built for the location. That is why every installation along this stretch of coast is specified for a marine environment.

There is also something particular to San Pedro. Much of the town was laid out from the nineteenth-century agricultural colony, with wide streets and generous plots, and a good number of the pools here are concrete and decades old. That is not a problem: most will take a cover without touching the shell. Where there is room the roller goes submerged in a purpose-built bench; where there is not, it sits visible on the coping stone.

As for the slats, transparent polycarbonate is popular in the Guadalmina villas because it all but disappears over the water; solar polycarbonate is the choice if you want to warm the pool using the sun; and PVC remains the toughest and best-value option. You can compare them all in Cover models and Slat types — or come to the office and handle them yourself.

The English-speaking owner in San Pedro lives here

The foreign owner here is usually a resident rather than a fortnight visitor, and that changes what the cover has to do: the water is being heated, treated and topped up for most of the year, not for two weeks in August. We see two kinds of garden in the town. In Nueva Alcántara, Linda Vista and Cortijo Blanco there are townhouses and villas on the old colony grid, with the pool a few steps from the back door and children or grandchildren in and out of it. In Guadalmina Baja the plots are large, the pools older and bigger, and the owner's first question is usually what the cover will look like over the water rather than what it saves.

None of them open with the motor. Three other things come first. Children and grandchildren: where the pool sits close to the house, as it often does in Cortijo Blanco, Nueva Alcántara and Las Petunias, the cover is wanted as a barrier before anything else. Salt: a few hundred metres from the beach, on Linda Vista Playa or towards the Guadalmina front, the sea air attacks the metalwork long before it touches the slats — which is why the structure, shafts, brackets and every fixing are AISI 316L stainless steel, the marine grade. And the coping: where a villa has an original stone edge the owner does not want cut into, that is what decides where the shaft goes, and it is one of the things we check on the survey rather than assume.

The question owners here do not ask, and should, is what the age of the pool changes. Very little. An older concrete shell takes an automatic cover without being rebuilt: where there is no room at either end, the shaft sits visible on the coping on 316L supports and the tiling is not touched; where there is room, a bench or pit is built at one end and the shaft disappears under the water. That second option is masonry work at the edge of the pool, so it is simplest and least disruptive to decide while the pool is being built or refurbished — but it is not reserved for new pools, and we tell you which of the two your pool can take at the measuring visit.