AquaCal Heat Pumps: TropiCal vs HeatWave SuperQuiet?

[Ndemarco]

Hello,

I'm evaluating new heat pump heaters. I have an AquaCal HeatWave SuperQuiet at a FL vacation property and it has operated perfectly for >3 years. I'm looking at another for a different property. AquaCal has two similar heating lines:

TropiCal

HeatWave SuperQuiet

I'm wondering what the differences are. Maybe one is quieter than the other? The HeatWave SuperQuiet has a funky fan blade with serrations. I suspect that quiets the fan. It is truly quiet in operation. In this application, quiet vs. super quiet doesn't really matter.

Both appear to have Ti heat exchangers, going so far as to use the same brand name. The TropiCal line has a slightly larger 135K BTU (80/80/80) vs. a 126K BTU model for the HeatWave SuperQuiet line.

The brochures and website don't give much detail on the differences. The owners manuals show the controls to be similar, if not identical.

Can anyone shed light on this? TFP member 'poolsean' hasn't visited for a while. I'm going to PM him, poking for a response to this thread.

One more thing: An earlier thread says AquaCal leaves warranty travel expenses up to the owner. That seems a bit off.

 

[JoshU]

You are correct in that the TropiCal and SuperQuiet series units both have titanium heat exchangers. The T55 and T75 in the TropiCal line use tube in tube style heat exchangers while the T90, T115 and T135 along with the entire line in the SuperQuiet series feature AquaCal's Thermolink heat exchanger which is a unique design to their products.

The SQ120R and SQ166R models in the SuperQuiet series offer both heating and cooling modes. Even if cooling is not a desired feature of the heat pump this adds another benefit in that the unit can heat in lower air temperatures if this is desired. The TropiCal series does not offer any heat/cool units.

You are also correct that the SuperQuiet does have a quieter operation as compared to the TropiCal or other brand units on the market. A part of this is the fan blade design that AquaCal utilizes in this series. SuperQuiet series units use Scroll compressors. This also adds to the quiet factor.

There is another unit as well in the SuperQuiet series which is the SQ225 at 143,000 BTUs (80/80/80). A few weeks ago AquaCal rearranged the SuperQuiet line so some of the information you see out there may not show this new model.

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions.