Quote Originally Posted by CountryBumkin View Post
I'm doing the same search. I am replacing my 7+ year old heater, which is a RayPak RHP100 (heat pump). Even though you live in NJ (my home state) and I'm in FL, however I think a heat pump would be the most economical way to heat your pool (over gas heat or solar).
I have found that the Pentair UltraTemp (models 120 and 140) have a lifetime warranty on the heat exchanger and a 10 year warranty on the compressor (7 yr outside of FL, I think) which is the best warranty I've found.
Since I'm in FL I plan to get the model that heats and cools the water (as the water gets too hot in the late summer season).

I have a lot of Pentair parts (2 pumps, DE filter, 3 color-changing lights, valves, and IntelliTouch controller) in my setup and they have performed well.
I have a heat pump for my home AC/heat and it works fine in the winter for keeping my house warm (it works fine to produce heat at 30 degrees outside air temp). But maybe for your needs it won't be the best choice. As I mentioned, I have a heat pump pool heater and a gas heater (400K BTU) for my pool spa. The gas heater is way too expensive to use to heat a large body of water for an extended time period. I suppose if you just want to do a quick heat up for a special event it won't be too bad - but I would not want to use one (gas heater) for maintain a warm pool to extend the swimming season an extra month or so.

My Jandy spa heater lasted 7-ish years. I replaced the burners, some controls, and the heat exchanger around year 6 (in hind sight, i should have bough the copper-nickle heat exchanger since I have a "salt" pool). But now the exterior is corroding badly. My RayPak heat pump is about the same age. It has leaked the refrigerant out and parts are no longer available - so its time to be replaced too. What's worse, is that its housing is also corroding badly (my home's heat pump lasted 20 years sitting outside. So why can't the pool heat pump "housing" last as long?). Next time I build a shelter over the equipment.