Pool and garden maintenance in Marrakech
While you are away

No. Pool and garden upkeep is part of Full Property Management when you let, and of the owner’s concierge service when you do not: the latter can be signed on its own, with no listing and no guests. What we bring is not the visit itself — a pool technician knows how to treat water — but everything around it: a pace written into the mandate, a dated report with photographs, an alert when something is wrong, a spending ceiling and a quote before any repair. That is what makes it possible to follow a pool from abroad without phoning to find out whether anyone has been. If you are looking for a one-off visit, before an arrival or after a storm, write to us anyway: we will tell you plainly what we can do, rather than promise what we would not deliver.

Keep it filled and filtering, at a reduced pace, rather than empty it. The Marrakech winter is mild by day and cool at night, but it rarely freezes in the city: a pool here does not need the full winterising of a European pool, covered and shut down for four months. The filtration runs for shorter periods, because cold water loads more slowly, the treatment continues at a lower dose, and one visit a week is generally enough from October to May. What gets lost in winter is attention: water allowed to drift in December is recovered in April, with a great deal of product, just as the first arrivals approach. Winter is also the time to have the pump, the filter and the seals checked before the heat, and to schedule any work that needs an empty pool.

Read our article on getting a villa ready to let after summer

No, and draining it without reason costs more than it saves. Well-filtered, well-balanced water keeps for several seasons: it is partly renewed as it loads up, through top-ups and backwashing of the filter. A full drain is decided by the state of the water and of the pool — water so loaded with limescale that no treatment will rebalance it, a finish to redo, a leak to find, building work — not by the calendar. It is then scheduled outside the hot season: a pool emptied in midsummer exposes its finish to the sun, and it is refilled just when water is most precious. In a city where water is becoming scarce, every refill counts. When a drain is needed, it goes into the property’s calendar in advance, alongside the other jobs that earn nothing and protect everything else.

You do, at their exact cost, and nothing is invoiced to you without its receipt. The recurring pool and garden contracts are settled on your behalf from a float, with every invoice attached to the monthly report; the float is reviewed once a year, or sooner if consumption drifts. On Full Property Management, preventive maintenance — including pump inspections — is covered by the monthly fee, and only parts and corrective repairs are re-invoiced. A repair that exceeds the spending ceiling agreed in the mandate never starts without your agreement on a quote. Whatever we commit for the house is re-invoiced with no margin on our side, and the amounts of our packages are published in one place only, on our pricing page. A water bill that doubles is often the first sign of a buried leak: it is the monthly report that reveals it.

Read our article on what it costs to manage a riad and a villa

The pool is protected first, and you are told before any expense beyond what the mandate allows. A pump that fails in summer means water that no longer filters in full heat: the first step is protective — cutting the power if the motor is running hot, stepping up the treatment, clearing whatever falls into the water — to buy the time for a proper repair. The technician then makes a diagnosis, repair or replacement, with a photograph and a quote. The spending ceiling agreed in the mandate decides what follows: below it, we commission the repair and it appears in the report with its invoice; above it, nothing starts without your agreement. It is this written ceiling, more than the speed of response, that saves the hours a search for approval would cost. And most of it is decided before the failure, at the monthly check of the pump and the filter.

Both, and they do not do the same job. The pool technician treats the water, cleans the pool and repairs the filtration: it is a trade, and we do not claim to practise it in their place. What they do not do is look after the house around it: knowing who comes in and when, fitting their visit around the gardener’s, flagging the leak they did not see because it was in the kitchen, weighing up a quote, reporting to you in writing. A management company holds the mandate, the schedule of works, the relationship with the craftsmen and the record of every expense. We work with vetted pool technicians, and a partner who disappoints once is taken off the list. If you already have a pool technician you trust, they can stay: we supervise them, with a written brief and a report on every visit.

Read our article on maintaining a villa from abroad