If you are novice at pool maintenance, do not use Champion as your only source of information. Comparison shop and you will see the incredible markup pricing on common items compared to other stores in Tucson. Julie and Erik have always been extremely knowledgeable and helpful on basic pool chemistry. Their senior partner, and installation manager Greg does not have a clue what he is doing around pool equipment. He was severely rude, and did not understand the venturi skimmer system and interrupted me twice to contradict what I was showing him onsite. I asked them for assistance, and was willing to pay their inflated price, for install of my Intellipro pump and a programming of my Suntouch system. Greg could not answer simple questions, and persisted in attempting to sell me activated filter media at a cost of over $1200 for my sand filter. The product may be the latest and greatest, however when I explain that I would explore that option when it was time to replace my currently perfectly functioning sand, he repeatedly returned to pushing the product and even included the price in the estimate for the pump installation.
In the end, Greg refused to install the pump for unknown reasons, citing hearsay and rumors of others having issues after installing a pump they did not sell. The pump was purchased for HALF of the price they sell it for and through a reputable online distributor who also has a pool store chain in California. I only needed Champion to install the pump in order to establish the warranty for the product. I guess they were afraid of their own lack of experience or workmanship to realize that any warranty claims would be handled directly with poolsupply.com and/or Pentair directly by me.
For pool water maintenance, I could recommend this store, however for anything involving equipment maintenance or replacement, I would strongly urge anyone to comparison shop before ever visiting this store. You will see for yourself they are a starving pool supply store with a small customer base, and pushing the expense of their operation onto the customers who may not know any better. read more