Swim pool ongoing maintenance

Weekly is normal for an uncovered pool, otherwise you need to spend valuable holiday time recovering the water quality. 

If you have no plans to use the pool for months at a time, a canvas-strapped cover can reduce the maintenance requirements significantly during winter (when it is cold, and if the pool is properly dosed), but less so during summer.

Re the cover ... when the pool is in regular use ... this depends on the proximity of your pool of sources of dirt. If you are close to trees (especially pine trees) your pool can become really dirty.

If you are in an area of tiled/concrete gardens, the risk is lower.

Then there is the Sahara sand rain - brown mud literally falls from the sky a few times each year. We had it badly last week. The bottom of our pool is still brown. A pool robot won't clear it, as it needs to be "hoovered to waste".

FWIW, we had very old a sliding-arched segmented pool cover (aluminium/poly-carbonate). We had it removed last year, in line with removing 75% of our nearby pine tree canopy. We will be replacing it soon (albeit with a more modern version). We think this will cost around 10K Euros for a pool of 8m by 3.5m.

We have a "Solar Breeze" solar panel pool swimmer (it swims around and skims the surface), but it can't cope with pine tree seed pods. 

Thank you so much kelvin  for your useful and interesting feedback its much appreciated and will help us decide the best way forward. Cheers 

The costs of maintaining a property from distance is always a balance, as relatively time spent in your holiday home is generally only a few weeks a year. However the pool is one of the largest ongoing costs.

Pool maintenance companies vary considerably in ways in which satisfactory results can be achieved.

A full service of brush/hoover/filter backwash/skimmer clear and chemicals typically takes at least 1 hour, very few companies complete this weekly and in fairness to them their charges would need to increase for them to do this. Mainly because of competition the prices are squeezed to the minimum. Consequently weekly visits can be brush 1 week, hoover when required, increased reliance on your timed filter system etc etc. This reduces the time required by an individual to spend at your pool. Therefore making it more cost effective.

The pool doesn't really suffer as when they know your return date a full clean/shock water treatment will be done minimum 48 hours before you arrive and when you walk in its sparkling and you are happy. 

Covering your pool will keep the majority of dirt/sand out however its more time consuming for maintenance people to remove and clean the water which will still need treatment unless you opt to cover and just leave it and sort it out when you arrive.

Pool sand/glass filters operate at about 1 kWh,  so the filter costs with spiralling electricity costs can be a consideration as recommended times are summer, 6-8 hours a day and winter about half this. The filter being the easiest way to keep the pool clear with minimum effort and required to keep the nasties away. 

So two choices really, leave it and do it when you arrive (I do this now) or pay and have it done for you. Invest in CCTV (not expensive for remote cameras direct to your phone) and you can keep an eye on it if you do the later.