Pool & water treatment in Mallorca · Joaquín and Juan since 1998

Across much of Mallorca the water is hard, but there is no single figure, because it is not the same water: in wells and boreholes on country properties we usually measure around 60 French degrees (ºfH), and in treated mains water more like 25 to 35 ºfH, when comfortable for the installation is below 15. Those are orders of magnitude, not a table: every time we fit a softener we run an analysis of that particular water, because it changes from one house to the next. If your home runs off its own well, count on the higher figure. That limescale clogs pipes and ruins taps, heaters and appliances. A water softener (we fit Kinetico Premier Plus and Compact, and BWT) treats the whole house and stops the scale; reverse osmosis (Kinetico K10) is a further step, only for the kitchen drinking tap, and removes scale, salts and tastes. The usual setup in Mallorca is a softener for the whole home and, if you want quality drinking water, an osmosis unit in the kitchen.

Yes. We look after the technical side of the pool: pump, filter (sand or glass), multiport valve, skimmers and dosing (chlorine or salt chlorination and pH control). We service the plant, replace pumps and filters that no longer perform and leave the water balanced. We don't do pool-shell building work or lifeguarding: we handle the hydraulic installation and the water treatment. And a warning we always give, because it catches people out: not every private pool sits in the same box. Spanish RD 742/2013 puts pools of residents associations, rural houses and agrotourism properties in type 3A, with considerably more obligations than a single-family pool, which only has to report incidents. If you let your house out, it is worth checking which of the two you are in before somebody else checks it for you. Tell us and we factor it into the maintenance plan.

Yes. We find and repair leaks and faults in pool plumbing: supply and return pipes, valves, the plant-room manifold and any joints that are losing water. If the pool drops more than normal evaporation would explain, we check where the water is going and make it watertight, with a quote before we touch anything.

It depends on the area: in many towns the water is drinkable but very hard, with a lot of limescale and salts, so it tastes poor and damages the installation. A softener improves the water throughout the house, and if you want genuinely good drinking water, a reverse-osmosis unit in the kitchen gives you light, scale-free water. We tell you what actually fits your home without overselling. And there is something that everyone assumes and almost nobody checks: well water is not drinking water. For water to count as fit for consumption, Spanish RD 3/2023 asks, among other things, for no more than 50 mg/L of nitrate and 0.50 mg/L of nitrites, a pH between 6.5 and 9.5, and for it to be disinfected and to contain residual disinfectant. The thing is that every water fails somewhere different, which is why every case is its own world. If the well comes out salty — and in several parts of Mallorca it comes out very salty — that is not fixed the way limescale is: only reverse osmosis removes salt. If what it carries is nitrates or nitrites from the surrounding farmland, which you neither see nor taste, it needs specific treatment to bring them down, because a softener does not touch them. And if the water is stored in a tank or cistern, it gets contaminated again however well it went in, so it has to be kept treated while it sits there. That is why the first step is always to analyse the water, not to buy equipment. And here is something you will not hear everywhere: making water drinkable is expensive and not everybody needs it. Some properties only want the water for irrigation, and then there is no need to go that far. What we will always tell you is what your water needs and how far it is worth going. And here is something that saves money: irrigation water does not need what drinking water needs, so it is neither treated the same nor mixed. They run on separate lines and into different tanks, and that is not a quirk of ours either: where reclaimed water is reused to irrigate a private garden, Spanish RD 1620/2007 makes the authorisation conditional on having a dual, signposted circuit along its entire run to the point of use. What we do not do is declare any water fit to drink: an installer does not sign that off, it comes from a laboratory analysis and it is a matter for the health authority.

We install both and advise you based on your pool. Salt chlorination (electrolysis) is very convenient day to day: the salt generates just the right amount of chlorine and the water is gentler on skin and eyes, though the equipment is a bigger upfront investment. Classic chlorine dosing is cheaper to start with. With both we look after pH control, which is what really keeps the water healthy and clear. We work with Astralpool kit. Chlorine or salt, the water is judged by the same numbers either way: Spanish RD 742/2013 sets free residual chlorine at 0.5 to 2.0 mg/L, combined chlorine at 0.6 mg/L maximum and pH between 7.2 and 8.0. And here is the detail almost nobody explains: what stings your eyes and smells of chlorine is the combined chlorine, the chloramines. If your pool smells strong, it is not that there is too much chlorine, it is that there is too little free chlorine. Those values are compulsory in public pools; in a private villa pool they are not, but they are the ones we work to.

Yes, it's one of the most common requests from owners who don't live in Mallorca all year. Before the season we check the pump and filter, make sure there are no leaks, balance the water and leave the plant ready so the pool is in order when you arrive. If you have a villa, we roll it into our JSL Villa Care maintenance service.

Yes, and Mallorca's climate is one of the best for it. With a pool heat pump the water stays at 26-28 °C and you go from swimming around three months a year to swimming from April to October. The heat pump takes energy from the air — for every kWh of electricity it returns several kWh of heat to the water — and performs especially well in the island's mild temperatures. We size it to the pool's volume, whether it's outdoor or indoor, and whether it has a cover.

The enemy is evaporation: it's where a pool loses most of its heat. So the first thing we recommend is a thermal cover or blanket, which stops that loss and cuts the heat pump's consumption considerably. The second is using your solar: if you have panels, the midday surplus heats the pool at minimal cost. With a cover and a properly sized heat pump, keeping the water at 27 °C in season is a reasonable expense, not a luxury.

Yes. A well-planned aerothermal heat pump can climate-control the home and, with a dedicated heat exchanger, the pool too: one machine for everything. It's one of the combinations we propose most often in villas. Indoor pools also need dehumidification: warm water in a closed room creates condensation that ruins joinery and walls, so we control the air's humidity as well as the water temperature. We take care of both.

Yes, we work across the whole island of Mallorca and look after you in English, Spanish and German. We reply within 24 hours on working days to arrange the visit and give you a fixed, no-obligation quote. Juan comes, Joaquín comes, or we both come: we don't subcontract. See our work and customer reviews on the JSL Google Maps profile →.