Dear Jim,
I understand where you are coming from. I too feel about the same way. I need to decide what i'm doing this year with chlorine also. I used the pucks in the past, and they worked well, except having very high cya counts by the end if the year.

So the next year I got a great deal on shock, and used just that for one year, until late in the season when all of a sudden I had cloudy water. Lesson learned was that too much cal hypo was also bad.....

So the last two years, I've made a lot of trips buying tons of bleach from the dollar store, walmart, etc, and my recycling bins were overflowing.....

I do use pucks for the winter, and i'm now out, so I think i will buy another bucket, that will last me a few years, and do a combo of pucks and bleach, although I know not to use them at the same time.

Bleach seems to have gone up, and it is a pain to keep buying it, as opposed to buying one bucket of pucks every two years.....I could deal with high cya....just have to keep my FC higher.

Frank D.