What does natural pool maintenance cost in Bali?
From IDR 1,000,000 per month. Packages are quoted against your pool — its size, the visit frequency it needs, and how much planting overhangs it. There are no chemical costs on top, because there are no chemicals.
Three things move the number.
Size. A compact plunge pool and a resort-scale lagoon are different jobs, and the regeneration zone scales with the pool.
Visit frequency. We service twice a week through the dry season and three to four times a week through the wet, when rain dilutes the water and organic matter loads into the filter zone much faster. Some pools need more, some less.
Site conditions. A pool under heavy planting needs considerably more skimming than one in the open. In Bali that is the single biggest variable.
What makes the comparison with a conventional pool interesting is what is absent. A chlorine pool service bills you for chlorine, acid and stabiliser every month, and those costs rise with pool volume and sunlight. A natural pool has none of them, ever. You are paying for labour and expertise rather than for consumables.
There is also no annual drain-and-refill, which on this island means you are not buying thousands of litres of water each year to replace water you threw away.
Our staff are trained specifically to keep a natural pool at safe and optimum function — plant care, gravel bed condition, circulation and water quality monitoring. That is a different skill set from general pool servicing.
Plenty of owners do the weekly skim themselves and bring us in for the seasonal work. That is often the most cost-effective arrangement, and we are happy to set it up that way.