A pool heat pump is an air conditioner running in reverse, parked on a pad for months at a time, often closer to a bedroom window or a neighbor's patio than anyone planned. How loud it runs matters, and most of the industry will not put a number on it.
Four makers selling in the US print a noise figure for a residential pool heat pump. Only two, Madimack and Aquastrong, state a distance that makes sense. Raypak prints a distance that contradicts itself, and FibroPool prints two figures that disagree. Hayward, Pentair and Jandy print none.
Three distances, never one ranking
Every figure below is sound pressure, what you would hear at a point, and sound pressure depends on where you stand. Madimack measures at 10 feet, and at 3 feet for its InverELITE V2. Aquastrong measures at 33 feet and at 3 feet. A unit measured at 33 feet will look quieter than the same unit measured at 10, so we group the figures by distance and never rank across groups.
Within a group, the numbers are comparable only as far as the makers' methods allow. Madimack prints a range for each model without saying which speed or mode sits at each end. Aquastrong prints one number per distance without naming a mode.
At 10 feet: Madimack
Madimack publishes the most complete tables here. The InverELITE V2 84,000 declares "Sound level at 10ft dB(A)" "30.8 ~ 44.5", and its US manual marks that row LP, sound pressure. The 116,000 declares 32.0 to 45.4. The small InverECO 32,000 declares 33.2 to 45.0, and its largest sibling, the 66,000, declares 38.4 to 47.1. The top discharge InverTITAN runs from 34.3 to 46.5 at 90,000 BTU to 38.8 to 51.1 at 140,000.
The InverELITE US manual adds a useful detail: Silence mode limits the unit to 20% to 80% capacity and runs "3dB(A) lower than Boost mode". Madimack's own marketing is less consistent. The InverELITE V2 page says "as low as 30.8 dB(A)", while the residential listing page says "as low as 45.4", which is the top of the bigger model's range.
At 33 feet and 3 feet: Aquastrong
Aquastrong's manuals give every model two figures. Its top discharge line is the quietest it makes: the 24,000 BTU HEX022TOP declares 32 dB(A) at 33 feet and 46 at 3 feet, the HEX035TOP 34 and 50, and the 140,000 BTU HEX140TOP 37 and 60. The small side discharge HEX012, HEX016 and HEX018 declare 36 to 38 at 33 feet and 48 at 3 feet.
The larger side discharge models are much louder on paper. The HEX022 declares "46 db" at 33 feet and "60 db" at 3 feet, and the HEX100 declares 55 and 68, printed as "db" without the A weighting. Aquastrong's product pages quote the 33 foot figure alone, as "ultra-quiet 32dB" and similar, without saying it was measured 33 feet away. The gap between Aquastrong's two distances also varies, from 10 dB on the HEX016 and HEX018 to 23 on the HEX140TOP, so read both.
At 3 feet, two makers
Only the InverELITE V2 and Aquastrong's range publish a 3 foot figure. The InverELITE V2 84,000 declares 40.3 to 54.0 dB(A); Aquastrong's HEX022TOP declares a single 46 dB(A). One is a range and one is a single number with no mode, so neither is clearly quieter, and we do not pick a winner at 3 feet.
Raypak's contradictory distance
Raypak's Crosswind page prints "Decibels" "34.9 ~ 45.0 dBA" for the 50-I and 38.2 to 49.3 for the 65-I. The English manual labels the row "Sound pressure 39" (3 m) dBA". Thirty nine inches is one meter, not three. The French edition of the same manual says "à 3 m" but calls the figure "Puissance acoustique", sound power. We cannot tell which distance is right, so the Crosswind sits outside the groups, flagged. Its vertical discharge sibling, the Crosswind V, prints "64 dBA" for every size, with no distance, mode or quantity, and its manual prints no figure at all.
FibroPool's FH235-i manual lists "Noise level 45 dB(A)" without a distance, then says the unit complies with EN ISO 3741, a sound power method, "producing 55 dB noise at 10 feet". The FH270 manual repeats the 55 dB sentence beside its own "Noise level 61 dB(A)". Two figures that disagree cannot be ranked.
The silent aisle
Hayward's HeatPro VS brochure is titled "Sounds better" and draws a scale from a ticking watch to a lawn mower with no decibel values, and its manual prints none. Pentair's UltraTemp brochure calls the 120Q "our quietest heat pump ever" with no number, and the Gulfstream line, whose old site now redirects to Pentair, promises reduced sound levels without a figure. Jandy's VersaTemp spec sheet offers "significantly less operational noise". Rheem sells Crosswind models under its own name; its product pages say "Whisper Quiet" and print no figure, though they link Raypak's manuals. AquaComfort's manual prints none, and EcoSmart's pool heaters are tankless electric units, not heat pumps.
AquaCal is the unresolved case. Retailers quote "as low as 33 dB" for its TropiCal Inverter, but the AquaCal documents they cite now return AquaCal's home page, and we could not read a current AquaCal specification with a figure. It stays out until we can quote AquaCal itself.
Placing a heat pump for less noise
The declared numbers only help if the pad is placed well. Aquastrong's manual tells owners to position the unit to minimize noise disturbance to neighbors. Where a maker publishes two distances, the 3 foot figure sits 9.5 to 23 dB above the farther one, so a few extra feet between the pad and a window or property line changes what you hear.
We did not measure any of these pool heat pumps. Every figure is the maker's own, quoted as published, with the distance and document it came from, and flagged wherever the maker's own documents disagree.
