We make and fit automatic slatted covers across the whole municipality: Torre del Mar and Caleta de Vélez on the seafront, Almayate, Benajarafe and Chilches, and the old town of Vélez inland. Our own crew, working out of our Marbella branch.
Vélez-Málaga is the capital of the Axarquía and, with 3,505 pools on the Catastro register, the seventh municipality of the 103 in the province of Málaga by number of pools. That figure does not come from one urbanisation: it is spread between the beach front at Torre del Mar, the villas of Almayate and Benajarafe, the plots at Chilches and Mezquitilla, and the houses of the old town of Vélez and Triana, which sit inland. A municipality like this is not served from a fixed catalogue, because a pool at an apartment block in Torre del Mar has nothing in common with one at a house inland.
We have made automatic slatted covers since 2005, with more than 5,000 installations, and every one of them leaves our own factory in Torrijos, Toledo. The people who measure in Vélez-Málaga, who fit, and who come back if something needs adjusting are the same crew: the one based at our branch in San Pedro de Alcántara, Marbella. We do not subcontract the installation. Write to us in English and you will be answered in English.
Every cover we make is motorised, running on 230 V and 50 Hz; there is no hand-cranked version. As standard it is operated beside the pool with a key switch, hold-to-run: the slats move only while the switch is held, and you watch the water for the whole of that time. A remote control and operation from a phone through a receiver appear in the quote as optional extras, and they too require you to be beside the pool, because the receiver's range is short. The structure and all fittings are AISI 316L stainless steel, never aluminium, and the cover is built to NF P90-308, the French safety standard.
Sea salt on the beach front. In the villages right on the water — Torre del Mar, Caleta de Vélez, Mezquitilla, Lagos — salt air eats ordinary ironwork. That is why the shaft, the legs, the supports and every bolt are AISI 316L stainless steel, the grade used in marine environments, with a service life beyond 15 years. Upkeep on the seafront comes down to rinsing the slats and their own profiles with fresh water and checking the supports once a year.
A long season means long evaporation. On the Axarquía coast the pool is used for many months and the water evaporates through all of them. A closed slatted cover cuts that loss by 70-80 %: in an 8 × 4 metre pool, between 15,000 and 25,000 litres a year you do not have to replace. Chemicals drop by around 35 %, and if the pool has a heat pump, its consumption falls by 50-60 %.
Visible or submerged shaft, depending on the build. The slats float on the water: there are no rails or guides of any kind. What rests on the coping is the shaft on its legs, and the housing when one is specified. On an existing pool, in Benajarafe or in Triana, a visible shaft is the norm, with or without a housing. If the shell is still under construction, in Almayate or Chilches, a pit can be left at the far end for a submerged shaft — but that is decided before any concrete is poured.
We cover the whole municipality, from the beach front to the interior, and from the Marbella branch we also serve the rest of the Axarquía. The neighbouring municipalities of Rincón de la Victoria, Nerja and Torrox each have their own page, with the models and lead times for that area.
We always measure at the pool itself, because in the old town of Vélez and on the unmade lanes to the plots there are approaches a lorry cannot take, and unloading the shaft has to be planned beforehand. The shaft is made to measure in one piece, so the real width of the entrance matters more than the plan does.
If access means a barrier, a gate code, a community permit or a key held by a neighbour or a manager, tell us when we book the visit.
Two things decide the slat here, and they pull in different directions. On the seafront the air is salty and the sun is relentless; inland, around Vélez and Triana, the nights cool off faster than people expect and the water gives back in the small hours what it gained during the day. In both cases the loss travels the same way — evaporation — and a closed cover is what stops it.
The slat is 60 mm wide, weighs 8.1-9.6 kg/m², floats on the water and is rated for Hail Class 4. PVC is the usual choice for family use. Solar polycarbonate lets the sun through and raises the water temperature by 6-7 °C at no running cost, which is what stretches the season at both ends. Clear polycarbonate is chosen for how it looks.
The slat lasts 10-15 years and is replaced without touching the structure, which goes beyond 15. Its UV treatment is real — it does not fade in the sun — and none of that is a warranty period: the warranty is three years and covers the whole cover, structure, motor, slats and installation.
Vélez-Málaga has two very different kinds of address. In Torre del Mar and the old town of Vélez there is a road to the door but the plots are narrow and the material goes in by hand. On the unmade lanes of Almayate, Chilches or Lagos there is room around the pool but the lane decides everything: a lorry does not always reach the pool edge, and the shaft is made in one piece.
That is why we measure on site before anything is confirmed. We check the real width of the entrance, work out how the shaft is unloaded and how it gets to the water, and only then give a fitting date. On an existing pool the work is normally finished in a day, with no breaking into the shell, no change to the filtration system, and using the 230 V supply the pool already has.
A good share of the pools in this municipality belong to houses that are not lived in all year. The problem with an unattended pool is not only the water, it is what falls into it: dust from the fields, leaves, and whatever a levante blow brings in off the sea. Closed, the cover seals the water surface completely, so what falls stays on top of the slats and comes off with a hose.
The effect on the bill is measurable. The filtration plant needs fewer hours, chemical use drops by around 35 % because the water is no longer sitting in full sun degrading the disinfectant, and evaporation falls by 70-80 % whether anyone swims or not. Coming back to the house means opening the cover and checking the water, instead of starting from scratch.
It is worth being clear about what the cover does not do. It carries no alarm, no sensors and no notification of any kind, and there is no timer or scheduled closing: opening and closing is always a deliberate action by an adult who is watching the water.
Vélez-Málaga has 3,505 pools and is the seventh of the 103 municipalities in the province of Málaga by number of pools. The reason is that two things meet here that rarely go together. On one side a long, well-populated stretch of coast, with established centres like Torre del Mar, Benajarafe and Chilches where a house with a pool is ordinary. On the other, a genuinely inland municipality: the old town of Vélez and Triana, where the pool turns up at the single-family house and on the farm plot converted into a home. Two worlds with the same cover underneath, but a different shaft, a different slat and a different site approach.
The growth is recent, too: 610 of those pools have been registered since 2022. That changes the kind of job that arrives. New pools can be handled with a submerged shaft in a pit at the far end of the shell, with no volume at all above the coping, provided the decision is taken before the concrete goes in. The ones built years ago, still the majority, are covered with a visible shaft resting on the coping, with or without a housing. Either way, manufacturing takes 4-5 weeks, so a pool you want covered for the summer has to be measured in winter.
It is worth understanding where this number comes from before using it. The Catastro register is a floor, not a ceiling: it under-records, because some pools were never declared and others are waiting to be regularised, so the real number of pools in Vélez-Málaga is higher than 3,505. Nor does it separate a private pool from a communal one, a hotel's or a sports club's — it counts them all the same, which in a municipality with a beach front is no small detail. And it does not go below municipality level: there is no official breakdown by centre, so how many of those 3,505 are in Torre del Mar and how many in Almayate, Lagos or the old town of Vélez is not public information. What we say about each centre is what we see when we fit, not statistics.
The first is the existing family pool, built years ago with nothing allowed for a cover. The shaft rests above the water on the coping, visible or inside a housing, the shell is not touched and the job is finished in a day. In Vélez-Málaga this is the great majority of what we fit.
The second is the pool still under construction, which has been arriving more often since 2022. There the pit for a submerged shaft is left before the concrete is poured and nothing shows above the coping afterwards. More than 5,000 covers in over twenty years means few pool geometries here are new to us, and every one is cut and assembled to size in Torrijos.
With an automatic cover closed overnight, the swimming season in Vélez-Málaga runs from May to November. Without one the pool is down to the short summer: the water is slow to warm up and loses that heat as soon as the sun eases off.
The cover does two things at once: it stops evaporation, which is where most of the heat goes, and if you choose solar polycarbonate slats it lets the sun through and warms the water underneath at no running cost. And to hold the same temperature right through the season, a heat pump with a cover in place uses 50-60 % less energy.
Santiago R.
“As my wife rightly says — how lucky we were to find this company. They have done a flawless job because they genuinely know their trade. They know covers, which is what they make and sell, and on top of that they are good people. Thoroughly recommended.”
Google review · translated from SpanishJulia C.
“The cover is made from excellent materials and the finish is flawless. From the very first contact the service was outstanding and highly professional. They delivered everything they promised and the result exceeded my expectations. I would recommend them without hesitation.”
Google review · translated from SpanishTeresa
“From the first phone call with the office through to the fitters on the last day, everything was spot on: professional, punctual and tidy. It is a pleasure to find companies that still work like this.”
Google review · translated from SpanishGiuliana R.
“Excellent pool cover. Everything was good, from the advice to the installation. The cover is very well made, works beautifully and keeps the pool clean and protected. We are delighted with it and would certainly recommend them.”
Google Local Guide · translated from SpanishEva V.
“Thoroughly recommended. We are delighted with the cover they fitted for us. The service has been excellent from the very first moment, advising us at every step of the process.”
Google review · translated from SpanishYes, and it is the most common case in the municipality. We fit the shaft above the water, resting on the coping, visible or inside a housing. The slats float: there are no rails or guides of any kind. The shell is not broken into, the filtration system is not changed, and we use the 230 V supply the pool already has. We measure on site and make the cover to size in Torrijos in 4-5 weeks.
That is exactly what AISI 316L stainless steel is for, the grade used in marine environments: the shaft, the legs, the supports and all the bolts are made of it, with a service life beyond 15 years. Never aluminium. On the seafront upkeep is simple: rinse the slats and their profiles with fresh water after a blow off the sea, and check the supports and fixings once a year.
No. The cover is built to NF P90-308, which is a French standard, not a European one, and requires it to hold 100 kg as an anti-drowning measure: closed, the slats form a continuous surface that keeps anyone out of the water. That does not make it walkable or trafficable, and nobody should get on top of it. It also carries no alarm, no sensors and no warning of any kind, and no scheduled closing: opening and closing is always a deliberate action by an adult who is watching the water.
If the shell has not been concreted yet, the cleanest answer is the submerged shaft: a pit is left at the far end of the pool and the shaft sits hidden under the water, with no volume above the coping. It has to be in the drawings, together with the 230 V supply. It is worth us talking to your builder before the shell is closed, and allowing for the 4-5 weeks of manufacturing.
In a municipality with a long season like Vélez-Málaga a cover pays for itself in four to seven years, adding up the water that no longer evaporates, 35 % less chemical use and, if there is a heat pump, 50-60 % less consumption. The warranty is three years and covers the whole cover: structure, motor, slats and installation. Separately from the warranty, the slat lasts 10-15 years without trouble and the 316L structure goes beyond 15.
We manufacture in our own workshop in Torrijos (Toledo), with the structure and all fittings in 316L stainless steel, and we carry out the installation ourselves from the branch in San Pedro de Alcántara. For a practice, a main contractor or a developer working in Torre del Mar, Caleta de Vélez or the plots at Almayate, the point is to resolve the cover at design stage: a submerged shaft needs a pit allowed for in the shell before any concrete is poured, whereas a cover that arrives at the end of the build is normally taken to a visible shaft. Manufacturing is 4-5 weeks and has to be fitted into the programme. If the project is in Vélez-Málaga and the client is yours, the relationship stays with you.
Tell us where the pool is — Torre del Mar, Chilches or the old town of Vélez — and we will put together a no-obligation quote. Made in our own factory in Torrijos, fitted by our own Marbella crew, with after-sales service and original spare parts. Call +34 91 631 59 40 or write in English to our Costa del Sol branch: C. Jorge Guillén 6, edificio norte, local 4, 29670 San Pedro de Alcántara (Málaga).
