All pumps have been redesigned several times over the years. They don’t redesign to make them better, but to see how much cheaper they can make them and still get most of them to last slightly longer than the warranty period.
I guess I have to take a little credit for some companies cheapening up their pumps even more. Cycling on and off is the biggest killer of pumps, and the Cycle Stop Valve makes even cheap pumps last longer. Since there is now a device that can eliminate cycling and make pumps last much longer, it puts a kink in their planned obsolescence. So they redesign again and make the pump/motor even cheaper still.
Pentair makes the same pump under many names like Meyers, Flotec, Fairbanks, Sta-Rite, Simmer, Aermotor, and others. These brands are as good as any, but also no better than any of the others.
Back in the 90’s the Sta-Rite (Pentair) built a really cheap, one-piece throw away pump called the “Value Sub”. Most of these didn’t last a year. But we were installing them with a Cycle Stop Valve and some of those things are still running 20 years later. If a CSV can make a “Value Sub” last 20 years, it can make any pump last much longer than usual.
Goulds is another company who bought out several pump companies and now sells the same pump under several different names.
Marketing the same pump under many different names causes retailers to cut prices in order to compete. Finding the lowest price on a cheaply built pump is now the only option, as pumps built with quality have been priced out of existence.
Grundfos and the many copies thereof offer a Stainless Steel impeller design, while everyone else’s pumps use plastic. However, they also have cheapened their pumps over the years by making the Stainless Steel paper thin. While the fixed impeller design may be more efficient at low flows when used with a Cycle Stop Valve, I don’t believe the Stainless Steel impellers are any longer lasting than the plastic versions.
There is no longer any special brand of pump that will last a longer than any others. As with a CSV on the “Value-Sub”, all you can do is limit the cycling on the pumps that are available to get the longest run possible.
