Rheem Raypak Residential P0280

Disappointing – I used to have an Astral MX100 gas pool heater but it reached the end of its life and needed to be replaced. They are becoming hard to find, most pool equipment franchises don't deal with them anymore, perhaps the moves by greens to shutdown the natural gas distribution pipelines and outlaw the use of gas heaters is a reason. Anyway the Rheem Raypak 280 was recommended and I sourced one and had it installed. It works very effectively.

However for the first summer of its use, despite many service calls, it 'kettled', meaning it screamed / whistled, as per an old style gas cooktop kettle whistling as it boils. This was very troublesome as it added to the noise of the pump, set to high when heating, the potential long term effect is that the heater will not last as long as it should do as the excessive heat will degrade the components. I even replaced the old water pump with a new one for an additional $2500 in order to boost the water flow rate but it made no difference, nor did gas fitters adjusting the gas pressure downwards to the minimum specification.

I have used it at the tail end of this summer and so far it seems to have abated. Hope that it was just a 'running in' issue. The old heater never whistled even new so this is a fingers crossed situation. If it stays quiet then I will amend the review to four stars, less one to account for the stress and additional cost of tech visits and a premature replacement of a perfectly good pump.