ConstructionSantorini

One request. The right trade.

Tell us what needs doing.
We'll find who does it.

Every trade on Santorini, from one request. Free to use. We don't do the work — we know who does.

  • 27trades covered on the island
  • €0it costs you nothing to ask
  • 4languages: EL EN DE FR

What it takes to build one

1/6 · Ground

26 TRADES

Twenty-six trades touch a building like this. You only need one phone number.

Cave houses cut into the volcanic rock on Santorini, showing the yposkafo building stock that most renovation work on the island deals with
Pabernosmatao · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

Short answer

Construction Santorini is a free matching service. You describe the job — a leak, a rewire, a full renovation, a pergola that blew over — and we point you at the independent tradesperson on the island who handles that work. You deal with them directly. We do not do the work ourselves, and we do not charge you for the introduction.

What's the problem?

Describe it the way you'd say it out loud

You don't need to know whether it's a plumber or a waterproofer. That's the part we're for. Here is what people actually write, and where it goes.

Describe your job

How it works

Three steps. No phone tree.

  1. 01

    You describe the job

    One form, about two minutes. Plain words are better than trade words — "water coming through the bedroom ceiling" tells us more than "roofing". Photos help and are never required.

  2. 02

    We work out who's right

    Right trade, and right for where you are — a job in Oia with no vehicle access needs someone who already works that way. If two trades are involved we tell you which one to start with.

  3. 03

    They contact you directly

    You agree the price and the timing with them, not with us. We're not in the middle of it, we take no cut of the job, and nothing about the arrangement passes through us.

What we can and can't tell you about a tradesperson

The register

Twenty-seven trades on one island

From an emergency callout at midnight in August to a two-year cave-house restoration. Drag, or use the arrow keys.

01 Electrician Rewires, boards, faults, outdoor and pool circuits. 02 Plumber Leaks, pressure, tanks, bathrooms, hot water. 03 Air conditioning Split systems, servicing, the August breakdown. 04 Painter Interior, exterior, and the annual whitewash. 05 Mason & stonework Walls, pointing, terracing, dry stone. 06 Carpenter Doors, shutters, built-ins, roof timbers. 07 Tiler Floors, wet rooms, terraces, repairs. 08 Plasterer Render, skim, traditional lime finishes. 09 Waterproofing Roofs and terraces, before the winter rain. 10 Roofing Flat roofs, vaults, parapets, drainage. 11 Pool maintenance Weekly service, pumps, chemistry, repairs. 12 Solar & water heaters Solar hot water, cylinders, immersion. 13 Gardener & landscaping Planting, irrigation, terraces, upkeep. 14 Glazier & aluminium Glazing, frames, screens, broken units. 15 Welder & metalwork Railings, gates, pergola frames, repairs. 16 Marble & stone cutting Worktops, sills, thresholds, steps. 17 Septic & drainage Blockages, tanks, soakaways, pumping. 18 Water tanks & cisterns Cleaning, lining, pressure, refills. 19 CCTV & networks Cameras, wifi that reaches, door entry. 20 Cave-house restoration Yposkafo work: damp, cracks, vaulting. 21 Cleaning & property care Between-let turnarounds, absent-owner checks. 22 Locksmith Lockouts, cylinder changes, safes, gate locks. 23 Appliance repair Fridges, washers, ovens, commercial kitchen kit. 24 Pest control Ants, rodents, wasps, mosquitoes, bed bugs. 25 Pergolas & shading Pergolas, sails, awnings, wind-rated fixings. 26 Generators Backup power, install, service, changeover. 27 General handyman The list of small jobs nobody else will take.

Every trade, listed

Why this exists

Finding someone here is a navigation problem

On the mainland you search, you call three numbers, and one of them turns up. Here the good people are booked through a network you are not part of, half of them do not advertise at all, and the ones easiest to find online are frequently the ones with the most gaps in their calendar — which is not the recommendation it looks like.

So the usual advice is to ask a neighbour, which works if you have lived here for years and does not if you bought the house in March. Meanwhile the island runs on a season: between May and September every capable trade is committed, and between November and April half of them are on hotel refits.

This site is the shortcut. One request, read by someone who knows which of these people is free this week and which is worth waiting for. That is the whole service, and it is free because the tradespeople are the ones who benefit from a well-described job landing in front of them.

How the matching actually works — and its limits

OrderMainland PortCrossing AthiniosSite lead time consolidate cut-off time weather unload + haul final metres Control inside our control outside anyone’s control — this is why the programme carries float A cancelled crossing does not cost hours. It costs days, because the next sailing is already full and the crew you booked has moved to another site.
A-08 Every item on a Santorini site crosses this chain. Each handover is a place the programme can stop, and only the first two are inside anyone’s control.

Need someone today?

Burst pipe, dead power, AC down in August

Some things cannot wait for a considered match. There is a faster path for those, with fewer questions and a shorter form.

Same-day and emergency

For tradespeople

Work you didn't have to chase

If you work on the island and want described, qualified jobs sent to you rather than half a sentence on a Facebook group, there's a page for that.

Receive requests

Section A–A · the ground under all of it

Why a job here is not the same job on the mainland

Santorini is not rock with soil on top. It is a stack of eruption deposits, each behaving differently under a footing, a blade or a drill. Most of what makes work here slow, expensive or damp starts in one of these six layers — and it changes which trade you actually need. Take one.

Lime render and wash 0 – 40 mm Ash and pumice overburden 0.5 – 8 m Welded tuff — the aspa 2 – 30 m Layered pyroclastics 10 – 50 m Pre-eruption bedrock 30 m + The caldera face yposkafo, cut into the tuff 0~25 m~50 m
Geological section — the problem each layer creates
LayerDepthWhat it means for construction
Lime render and wash0 – 40 mmThe thinnest layer causes the most argument. Traditional lime lets a wall dry outwards; modern acrylic paint does not. Repaint a breathing wall in plastic and the moisture stops at the film, freezes the surface off in flakes, and the owner blames the plasterer two winters later. Lime plaster and render.
Ash and pumice overburden0.5 – 8 mLoose, light, and deceptively easy to dig — which is exactly the danger. It will not carry a spread footing without treatment, and an open trench in it collapses without warning. Depth to competent ground changes across a single plot, so the trial pit is not optional. Foundations in volcanic ground.
Welded tuff — the aspa2 – 30 mThe layer the island is famous for. Soft enough to cut with hand tools, strong enough to stand as an unsupported vault once the arch profile is right — this is what every cave house is carved into. Flatten the arch and it goes into tension, which tuff cannot do. Yposkafo excavation and vaulting.
Layered pyroclastics10 – 50 mBands of older eruption material with different strengths stacked against each other. Water perches on the boundaries between them and travels sideways, which is why damp on one side of a hill has its source somewhere else entirely. Excavation rates change layer by layer, so a price per m³ quoted without a trial pit is a guess. Excavation and earthworks.
Pre-eruption bedrock30 m +The competent ground everything would ideally sit on. Reaching it means a breaker rather than a bucket, and on a constrained site the plant to do that has to get there first. Where it surfaces — parts of Monolithos, Profitis Ilias — the ground is excellent and the cost falls accordingly. Structural works and concrete.
The caldera faceVertical sectionNot a layer but the cut through all of them, and the reason the views exist. The face is actively weathering: the soft bands undercut, the harder bands overhang, and the overhang eventually goes. Anything built here is a conversation about rock, drainage and setback before it is a conversation about architecture. Building on the caldera edge.

One request. The right trade.

Tell us what needs doing

One request, two minutes. We read every one and point you at the tradesperson who handles this. Free, and you deal with them directly.

Message us

Ask about this page

A question about this specific job, or about something else entirely. It reaches a person, not a queue, and there is no obligation.

Your message will tell us you were reading Construction Santorini

Plain words are better than trade words. If you have photographs, say so and reply to our email with them attached.

We use what you send only to answer you. Privacy.