I am also looking for any advice on heater selection...
I am contemplating natural gas vs. heat pump on our inground pool. The pool is not installed yet, but should be by early Sept 2006. I'm strongly leaning toward the Natural Gas, but a heat pump sounds interesting since we have very cheap municipal electric where I live western NY state.

The pool is an 18x36 inground (Sierra shape) with a 95' perimeter, 8' deep end (no spa) and I’m installing a bottom return line in the floor of the deep end as I’m told this helps provide more efficient heating. I will have FULL sun on the water from virtually sun up to sun down and will use a solar cover at night and when the pool is not in use. Since I have full sun and a solar cover, I think that heating would only be required in the spring and fall and just occasional maintenance mid summer if we had a stretch of cool weather resulting in heat loss. We like our water between 82-84 degrees. With that said, I would think that my heating use would be when I need to move the temp up 5 or 10 degrees quickly, which makes me think natural gas is the better option.

Anybody have experience similar to mine and any thoughts on this?

Thanks