Property services
Pool Specialists
Installation, seasonal maintenance and water treatment.
4 firms on the network Lake Como
The first thing to accept is that the pool may not be possible. A new pool changes the ground, the drainage and, from the water, the appearance of the hillside, all of which fall squarely inside landscape protection, and on a listed property the garden and its terracing frequently carry the same protection as the house. Where a pool is achievable, it is achievable as a structure: cut into a slope, with retaining on the uphill side, drainage taken around it, and the whole thing tied into terracing that was built dry a century or more ago and does not appreciate being undermined. That is why the good firms arrive with an engineer's question rather than a catalogue, and why a pool contractor who has only ever built on flat ground in the plain is the wrong appointment here even when the price is attractive.
The second is the shape of the year. A lake pool works hard for a short season and sits idle for the rest, which inverts the usual maintenance logic. The plant is stressed by being started and stopped rather than by running; the failures show up in the first fortnight of use, and nobody is there in April to notice them. The classic sequence runs like this: the pool is opened late because the firm is busy, the water is not right, the heating has not been tested, and the family arrives to a pool they cannot use for three days. Underneath that sits the hillside itself: pollen in May, leaves and grit off the slope after a storm, and run-off that finds the pool because it is the lowest flat thing on the terrace.
The third is water and plant. The supply here is hard, which shows in scale on heat exchangers and in the balance of the water; heating a pool in a cool Como spring takes longer than owners expect, and a heat pump asked to raise a large body of water in early May will be running for days rather than hours. Covers pay for themselves in that context and are routinely left off. And the winterising decides everything about the following season: lines drained properly, plant isolated, cover fitted and then actually checked through the winter, because a cover that fills with leaves and water in November is a job in itself by March. Owners who treat closing as an afterthought pay for it at opening, every time.
01What they actually do
Building or rebuilding on a slope
Excavation and retaining on a terraced site, drainage taken around the structure, and the consents that a new pool in a protected setting requires.
Opening for the season
Refilling, balancing, testing the heating and the plant weeks before arrival, so that faults surface in April rather than on the first evening.
Weekly service in season
Water chemistry, filtration, skimming after the storms that bring the hillside down, and keeping the plant running through the heaviest weeks of use.
Closing and winterising
Draining the lines, isolating the plant, fitting the cover, and checking it through the winter rather than leaving it under leaves until spring.
02How we choose
We ask to see pools these firms built five or more years ago on difficult ground, and we look at the edges: whether the coping has moved, whether the retaining behind it is sound, whether the terrace above has settled. A pool that still sits true on a Como slope after several winters is a better reference than any photograph taken the week it was filled.
No firm has paid to be on this page and we take nothing on the work. With only four names here we are asked fairly often to add a fifth, and the answer has been no, because the ones we would be adding are firms whose seasonal work we have not yet watched from one April through to the next.
Removal in this trade usually follows growth. A firm takes on more houses than it can service in the peak weeks, visits get shorter, water goes out of balance, and the owner is the one who finds out. Late openings that were not flagged in the spring, and winterising that turns out not to have been done, are the two failures that end the relationship immediately.
Pool Specialists: questions
Can I add a swimming pool to a Lake Como villa?
Sometimes, but never assume it. Landscape protection covers most of the shoreline and on a listed property the garden and terracing may be protected with the house, so the answer has to come from an architect before you buy.
Where consent is achievable, siting is usually the negotiation: a pool set below the sightline, worked into an existing terrace and screened from the water is a very different proposition to one cut into an open slope. Owners who plan the purchase around a pool they have not tested for consent are taking a risk that cannot be priced afterwards.
How is pool maintenance charged?
Normally as a seasonal contract covering an agreed number of service visits, with opening, closing, chemicals and repairs handled separately. We do not publish rates.
The variables are the volume of water, whether the pool is an overflow design, whether it is heated, and how exposed the site is to leaf and grit off the hillside. Check whether opening and closing are inside the contract or billed on top. That single point accounts for most of the surprises owners report.
When should the pool be opened for the season?
Several weeks before you intend to swim, so that any fault in the plant or the heating appears while there is still time to fix it.
Booking the date matters as much as choosing it. There are few firms on the lake, the whole of their opening work is compressed into a few weeks in spring, and an owner who calls in June is joining the back of a queue at exactly the moment nobody has capacity.
Can a Lake Como pool be heated for spring and autumn?
Yes, and most are, but raising a large body of water in a cool spring takes days rather than hours and a cover makes far more difference than owners expect.
Heat loss overnight from an uncovered pool on a hillside in April or October will undo most of what the plant achieved during the day. If the shoulder seasons matter to you, treat the cover and the way it is operated as part of the heating system rather than as an accessory.
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Are you the bestat what you do here?
The list we introduce from is short and grows slowly: by working with somebody, seeing how a job goes, and only then adding them. If that is the standard you hold yourself to, tell us who you are. We read every one. We check work before we introduce anybody, and no money passes in either direction.
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