Automatic pool covers in Sotogrande

The two things Sotogrande owners ask us first

Who actually turns up, and from where. We are the manufacturer: since 2005 we have built our own slatted covers in our own factory in Torrijos, Toledo — more than 5,000 of them — and yours is built to your shell's measurements. The people who come to the house are our own. The coastal team works out of our office at C. Jorge Guillén 6, San Pedro de Alcántara, about forty-five minutes up the A-7 from the Sotogrande gates: they measure, they fit, and they are the ones who come back afterwards. Manufacture takes four to five weeks from your approval, and fitting one or two days.

What you are choosing between. Every cover we build is motorised, 230 V, and there is no hand-cranked version. The drive is hold-to-run: the slats move only while the button is held, so nothing travels across the water unattended. You choose where the shaft sits — above the water, resting on the coping, which is the normal answer on a finished pool, or submerged in a pit under the water and out of sight, which has to be allowed for before the shell is concreted. Then the slat: PVC, solar polycarbonate or transparent polycarbonate. Structure, shafts and every fitting are AISI 316L stainless steel, the marine grade.

And what it gives back, because this is where the sums usually go wrong. An eight-by-four-metre pool loses fifteen to twenty-five thousand litres a year to evaporation, and a closed cover cuts that by 70 to 80 per cent. The figure nobody budgets is the other one: a pool left open and unwatched through a Sotogrande summer goes off, and then it is topped up daily, or drained and refilled outright. Chemical consumption drops by around 35 per cent, and a heat pump under a closed cover uses 50 to 60 per cent less. The structure lasts beyond fifteen years, the slats ten to fifteen, and a cover of this kind pays for itself in four to seven years.

Buying a cover for a house you are not standing in

Start with the measurements, because they decide everything else. We need the internal length and width of the shell, photographs of both ends and of the coping, and one photograph of the narrowest point on the way in: the material arrives long and rigid, so in Sotogrande Alto and La Reserva the real question is usually the side gate, the service lane or the pedestrian entrance rather than the main drive. If you are not here, our own team measures on site with whoever has access — house manager, keyholder, gardener or pool maintenance company.

Then two decisions, and only two, are genuinely yours. Where the shaft goes: above the water on the coping, with or without a box over it, or submerged in a pit and out of sight, which is only open to you while the pool is being built or refurbished. And the slat: PVC where the plot is full of trees and the house is shut for months, solar polycarbonate if you want April and October as well, transparent polycarbonate where the pool is part of the view from the terrace. The quotation is itemised and the drawings come with it, by email.

The estate side is settled before the fitting date, not on the morning of it. Vehicle registrations and the fitters' names go to entry control, the permitted working hours and the access route are agreed, and we supply whatever technical documentation the conservation entity or the community requires. We need no key of our own: your house manager or keyholder lets the crew in and is there at handover. Manufacture is four to five weeks, fitting one or two days, and we photograph each stage so you can follow it from wherever you are. The supply is Spanish mains, 230 V at 50 Hz; coming from North America, do not expect 120 V.

Afterwards you are dealing with the same people. An adjustment, a service visit or a part comes from San Pedro de Alcántara, the same forty-five minutes away, and because we built the cover the parts are ours, not a catalogue item from elsewhere. Upkeep is short: rinse the slats with fresh water every few weeks on a plot this close to the sea, and have the fittings checked once a year. A gardener or keyholder can work the cover while you are away and, since the drive is hold-to-run, nothing moves unless somebody is standing there. Call +34 91 631 59 40 and we will go through it in English.