I’m asked from time to time for tradesmen recommendations from friends out here in Spain. Quite often on places like Facebook, you will see people asking for suggestions for a builder and you’ll see the same names pop up, but often the people who are suggesting them, are the people they go to the pub with every weekend.
Sorting the wheat from the chaff when it comes down to tradesmen recommendations can be very costly, if you get the wrong people.
Another thing you’ll find, especially when it comes to swimming pools in and around Quesada and Torrevieja, is that the same people are recommending a specific company. No, I am not going to name them, but if you are savvy enough, you’ll understand who I mean here. This group of people ‘recomending them’ are employees, spouses of employees and even the company owner himself.
Laughable, I know, but hey, this is how social media works.
All I’d say is check out the Names & Shamed Facebook groups when seeking tradesmen recommendations and before you hire any company, just to see if they are listed there, but just as importantly how they respond and handle these ‘complaints’ out there.
So Here Are My own Personal Local Tradesmen Recommendations.
These are companies we have had work done by, been more than happy with and also happy to recommend, based on our own experiences. So here are our tradesmen recommendations for the Costa Blanca South area.
Please note, these tradesmen recommendations are not in any specific order!
Swimming Pool
Our pool company tradesmen recommendations are Ciaran and the team at VIP Pools.
On their page they say: Welcome to VIP POOLS
Not just your average pool cleaning company specialist’s in water care for your small private pool, to your large community pool, we offer unbeatable deals for your rental property or AIR BnB, wide range of satisfied clients with full references for anyone who is unsatisfied with their current cleaner or company and would like a change…
We pride ourselves on attention to detail in and around your pool area with outstanding communication with all our clients plus extensive water testing to ensure safe swimming for you and your family,we strive for quality over quantity and will not except every pool that comes available, however we do offer and no obligation free quotation for pool maintenance or repairs in a wide variety of locations around Alicante
We had bought the house here while we were still living inthe Granada region, and we had a guy doing our garden and another guy doing our pool. One day we got a message from the gardener, saying ” have you seen your pool” and a couple of photos. When we viewed the house and bought it, the pool was in good condition. Sadly the guy doing our pool wasn’t turning up to do the work, despite being paid in advance.
He then turned up and was using well water to top up the pool.
Needless to say the pool turned green!
Fastforward till we moved in. We then found a great local girl to do the pool, Gemma was fabulous, then out of the blue she said she was no longer offering the service. We had a couple of small problems in the meantime and got in touch with a well known company from Torrevieja, who came out, did the repair work, which achieved nothing. Soph had to chase and chase for the pressure test results report, these people just did not want to know.
Long story short, I reached out to 3 companies for a quote to rectify the issue and Ciaran came back quickly, so we ended up using him to clean the pool. He did the repair work too, in the meantime the pump, which was slowly on its way out he replaced.
We knew we had a handful of tiles either loose or had come off, so we got him to quote to do a regrout, as the pool was 10-15 years old or so and probably never been toughed by the previous owner. I said to Soph, while the pool was going to be empty, I’d like seating putting in one corner, so we got a price for that too.
VIP Pools did the work to a really high standard, and they still do our weekly cleaning, and the pool has never looked as good as it does now.
Painting & Decorating
We had work done on the exterior of the house with a well known company last year, which wasn’t cheap but we really kicked ourselves for not knowing about PDS. As our house isn’t a square box shape, you could say it has 5 sides to the building, this means we ended up with the company not doing the small wall down the side of the house. It could be said it was our fault for not fully reading the quoation/contract in depth, but hey ho. When someone says they’re painting the outside of your home, you’d automatically expect all the external walls to be done.
It kind of highlighted their level of customer care when the rep called while the work was being done, he hopped out of his air conditioned car, told the guy doing the painting to speed up the work, as he had booked him in a new job for the following week, never bothered to knock on the door to ask if we were happy with the progress etc. Lesson learned!
The company we recommend is PDS Airless Spraying And Traditional Decorator Costa Blanca who we have now used twice. We have a walled garden and the wall was looking tatty, there was a bit of repair work needed too and we decided to get this sorted. We got a quote from 2 companies and Paul from PDS was proactive in getting across to view and then quote. This was encouraging and after picking the colour, sorting out dates we left them to do the job.
The resulting work was really good, the repairs were all done to a high standard and the painting was top notch. We have since had them back to paint the inside of the house.
After buying the house, we used a British builder to do a full reform and boy did we choose badly. The painting of the walls and ceiling was atrocious, in all honesty a blind person could have done better. So after putting up with this after moving in, we decided to get this rectified.
We didn’t even bother getting other quotes in, we just asked Paul to call around, measure up, look at the work we wanted doing and give us a price. In our mind, we had a rough idea of a budget, and PDS came back with a figure that was very close to what we had as a budget.
So PDS Airless Spraying And Traditional Decorator Costa Blanca, are the guys to speak to for your painting and decorating needs.
Doors, Windows, Glass Curtains Etc
In Catral there is the company Clearly Frameless SL, who are Frameless Glass Curtain, Glass Pool Fencing and Aluminium Window & Door manufacturers and installers. When we moved into our house here, there was a nice outdoor kitchen/dining area, but we decided we wanted it enclosing.
As part of our due diligence, we spoke to a few people for suggestions. As well as Bryn from Clearly Frameless, we also had a further 3 different people come to give us a quote. Because we also needed some really bespoke work doing, one said they’d not be able to manufacture what we needed. A second quoted a price so high, I asked if they had added the comma in the wrong place.
We ended up going with Bryns company and could not be happier. In fact when we were having trouble with an old door into the garage, we had Clearly Frameless come to give us a price to manufacture and fit the door. Once again, an excellent job, from start to finish.
For windows, doors, glass balustrades tradesmen recommendations it’s clearly obvious who to speak to.
Electricals
Oh boy, where to start. When the house was being redone, the sparky they used was a nightmare. We called in one day to find a socket in the kitchen hanging off the wall, despite them not working in the kitchen, but they’d left it like this.
The air con unit in one of the rooms was leaking as he was still in the room, He then left after saying he’d fixed it only for it to start leaking 5 minutes later.
Sockets we had asked for some to be replaced with USB included were sited in the wrong positions in one of the rooms. In one of the bedrooms, none of the sockets were working, as the sparky hadn’t bothered checking them.
Fast forward, we needed to increase our potential, as we were having solar installed but also a pool heater. Soph found a local sparky, who was a one man band and spoke to him. He came out a couple of days later, had a look around then said he’d put the quote in. A week later we had heard nothing, so we reached out to another one man band, again British working out here. This second guy said he wasn’t able to do this work.
Not to worry, back to the first guy, who we managed to get a price from. he said it would take 2 weeks at the most from start to finish. Five weeks later, by now we have had to push back the pool heater install, he informs us he can’t do the work. The reason ” the guy I know at Iberdrola no longer works there”, unbelievable isn’t it?
Up pops AMPS on Facebook, so we reached out to them. Danny called around to view the house and work required. He gave us a price for everything, crazily this was a lot cheaper than the one man band to do the job. We got Danny to go ahead and they did everything that needed upgrading, they got the paperwork sorted and the level of support was excellent.
Months later, we decided we wanted to add security lights and have some more odd electrical jobs doing. Once again, a very professional service from start to finish, which is why we are more than happy to recommend AMPS Electrical for anyone wanting/needing electrical work carrying out.
As they say on their social media page; All Electrical Work And Installations Offered, Electrical Upgrades (Bolitens), Cctv / Alarm Security, Airconditioning & Green Energy Solar Sytem…
Including 24/7 Emergency Callouts… Spanish & English Speaking
So electrical tradesmen recommendations AMPS.
Further Thoughts
If you’re buying a house that needs to have work done, please do take time to seek out proper tradesmen recommendations from people who have had work done by the people they’re suggesting, not because they are in the pub with them most nights.
Measure Twice Cut Once
This is an old adage for doing DIY work, ensure you measure correctly to avoid costly mistakes. If you end up getting involved with shoddy / cowboy workers, you will end up paying twice to get the work you wanted done, because you’ll have to pay to get it corrected.
Don’t always go on price! A quote for a pool at 9000€, which is 5000€ cheaper than everyone else, should ring alarm bells. The really bad thing here that people forget is that if you get the cheapest builder in, pay him 9000€ to do the job that is a disaster, the chances of you getting your money back, are rather limited. This means you will then either leave the bodged job as it is, or go to the guys who quoted you the 14000€ to get them to get it done properly.
This means you have paid out 23000€ for a job that you could have and should have had done properly the first time around for 14000€.
Updating This Page
I will keep updating this tradesmen recommendations page as and when we find tradesmen who we personally use and are more than happy to recommend.
