I have two houses now in Arizona, and in the colder area where I don't have a pool I can get pool chemicals at Wal-Mart. Not in Tucson where we don't actually close pools. Off season, and they have to close them at 4500'. Just odd. Probably a better managed Wally as the ones in Tucson are decidedly ghetto.
So I haul gallons of stuff back on every weekend lately. The same tends to go for acid, but substitute in Home Depot for Wally on that one...
I have had to do that because my Universal 40 right now is toast. I have to replace a control board which I have but haven't done yet (lost an element on the LCD), and very likely the cell, which is disappointing as my pool is only 14.5K gal or so, and the cell and control board lasted only 2.5 years. I guess I'll get a new cell for it, but 2.5 years isn't the four promised.... $5.47 a gallon is the price but you can get 2x for $10 something so that is what I have been doing... relatively fresh too...
Having a pool is getting to be prohibitively expensive and it's not being used like everyone promised when I stopped saying no to building it... Sigh...
I have to be honest and say if I had to do it again I would have instead chosen a RJ instead of the Universal too but the Universal being "very similar" to the T-15 Hayward matched the rest of the equipment, so that is why I decided on it. I've had to fix something on all of the Hayward equipment at least once so far too so I should have known....
I have a lot of work to do on the pool in the spring... a day's worth of cleaning and sweeping.. probably new filter cartridges if I can afford them... a new cell for the Universal 40, repair of the innards of the Universal 40, water change to get the CH down from about 700 now... Maybe add a water softener outside inline since I don't want to add in borates to the pool since the dogs drink out of it no matter what I do...My detached hot tub is still disassembled from the element change as I was the only one using it and I have a medical reason currently that I can't use either... I can sure maintain all of it though....