Areas we cover

We work from Calahonda, and the ring we cover is the 10 km around it: Calahonda itself, Riviera del Sol, Miraflores, Cabopino and Artola, La Cala de Mijas, La Cala Golf, Elviria, Las Chapas, Torrenueva, and Fuengirola at the eastern edge.

Ten areas, one base. There is no clever way to read that. If you are inside the ring we will come. If you are outside it we will tell you, rather than take the job and turn up late.

What does the ring look like on the ground?

It runs east to west along one stretch of coast, and the character changes every few kilometres. Calahonda is the base and the densest part: Sitio de Calahonda, Calypso, Jardines de Calahonda, Doña Lola, Crown Resort Club, El Campanario, La Siesta Golf, apartment blocks stacked up the hillside in more than 140 self-managed communities.

East of that you have Riviera del Sol, split into Riviera Alta and Riviera Baja either side of the coast road, then Calypso and Miraflores Golf on the hill, then the marina and the protected Artola dunes at Cabopino. Further along, La Cala de Mijas around Playa de La Cala and the old village, the resort at La Cala Golf up above it, and then the Marbella-side stretch through Elviria and Hacienda Las Chapas.

At the eastern end it thins out into Torrenueva, Torreblanca and the Fuengirola edge. That is where the ring stops, and the honest reason is in the next section.

Why does the ring stop at 10 km?

Because there are two of us. Dave does drains, toilets and showers. Rob does boilers, water heaters and installations. When one of us is on a job the other is the one who rings you back, and neither of us is sitting somewhere waiting to dispatch somebody else.

A wider radius would read better on a website. What it would actually mean is a promise we cannot keep: telling you someone is on the way while we are already stuck at the far end of it. Ten kilometres is the distance at which we can still give you an honest time rather than a window.

Why the coast road decides how long we take

These ten areas sit in a line along the coast, not in a circle. Everything runs east to west, along the A-7 and the old N-340, and in practice that road decides how long a job takes to reach far more than the distance does.

In August it is the traffic, not the kilometres. A run that takes twenty minutes in February can take twice that in the middle of the summer, and anyone promising otherwise has not driven it in August. It is also why Fuengirola is at the edge of what we can promise. It is inside the ring and we do come, but if the road is against us you may wait longer than you would for a plumber based there.

What changes between an apartment in Calahonda and a villa in Elviria?

The building, and what that means for who pays.

Calahonda is apartment-led: around 6,000 homes across more than 140 sub-communities, each one self-managed by its own community. When a kitchen sink backs up here, the blockage may be in a vertical stack serving four flats, and that stack belongs to the community rather than to you. We work in these buildings constantly, so we know where that boundary usually sits, and we say which side of it your problem is on before we start rather than after.

Elviria is the other way round. Larger plots, low density, houses with bathrooms at opposite ends and long runs between them. Water travels along a pipe before it finds a way out, so a leak can surface two rooms away from the joint that failed. Larger plots also mean the stop tap is not always where you would expect to find it.

What you will find in both, and everywhere between, is hard water. It is the one thing that does not change as you move around the ring, and it is behind a good share of what we are called to.