Should you go tankless? A fact sheet on tankless water heaters for your home.

Have you ever looked at the water heater in your garage with its perpetual-burning heat source, rusty, battleship-like drum, and think that there must be a better way to get hot water? If not, then you’ve certainly given it some thought when you open your bills and start writing checks.

In fact, there is a better way to supply hot water to your home, saving significant money and energy. Today, we’ll cover everything you need to know about tankless water heaters, also called instantaneous water heating systems. They’re most prevalent in new homes and high-end homes these days, but with 27 million households in the U.S. using a water heater that’s at least 10 years old, tankless systems are expected to soon become the new norm.

The average household used about 64 gallons of water each day, adding up to a $400-$600 annual expense for hot water alone. In fact, heating water usually represents the second-highest utility expense in the home, accounting for 14-18% of all utility bills!

Tankless water heaters are powered by either an electric, gas, or propane heating device inside the unit. Electric heaters using 110 or 220 Volts are most common for single-unit tankless heaters that supply hot water to only one bathroom or kitchen, while larger whole-house tankless systems are usually fueled by gas or propane because they heat the water more quickly.

While that those may be the same fuel sources for heating water in conventional water heaters, tankless water heaters operate not by storing large quantities of water in a tank but heating the water as it's needed, in only the quantity that’s needed.

The standard size for conventional water heaters is typically 40 gallons, but they do range up to 120 gallons. Conventional water heaters work by channeling some of the cold water from your water source into the tank, where it continuously heats it. If the water temperature falls below a certain set temp, the burner kicks in and the entire volume of water is heated up again.

In tankless systems, however, water is heated up quickly via an exchanger, which turns on anytime you tune on your hot water faucet, so water is only heated when there’s a demand, saving a whole lot of energy (and cost.)

In fact, the Department of Energy estimates that tankless systems reduce home energy costs by about 34% annually!

The most energy efficient tankless water heaters are single-point application heaters, which means they are present in each room where hot water is necessary (kitchen, bathrooms, and laundry room.) These single-point application heaters run between 2 to 5 gallons per minute.

While a standard water heater costs about $400 at your home supply store, tankless units do cost more – typically $700 to $1,500 each. But  homeowners can recoup that cost within a few years with the energy savings from going tankless.

Even better, tankless systems last longer, with an average life expectancy of 20 years, compared to 11-15 years life span for conventional tank water heaters.

Tankless water heaters are only about the size of a suitcase, taking up far less space than their round-drum counterparts (saving you garage space!) and are safer. You’d be surprised how often water heaters malfunction and explode, hence the need for a pressure release valve and drain. Likewise, when conventional tank water heaters do finally fail and die, it could potentially cause some serious water damage in the home.

Tankless systems can be difficult to costly to retrofit into your home, however, so they’re usually best installed with new construction or when your home is being renovated.

The hot water also may take a little longer to reach your faucet when it comes from a tankless system and is heated on-demand, although homeowners quickly become accustomed to this.

But while conventional heaters can run out of water when someone takes a long, hot shower (leaving the next person with a cold shower), tankless systems never run out of hot water since they heat on demand.

Water tanks can also corrode inside over time, compromising the cleanliness and even the safety of the water being supplied to your home.

Other options for hot water at home include hybrid electric systems, solar water heaters, and heat pump systems.

When shopping for a tankless water heater, check the unit’s flow rate, which is measured in gallons per minute. The higher the BTU rating (British Thermal Units), the higher the unit’s flow rate. It usually takes about 31,000 BTU to heat 4 Gallons Per Minute (GPM) of hot water. For reference, 4 GPM is about enough to supply hot water to one sink and one shower simultaneously, while a 6 GPM system can deliver enough hot water for two showers at the same time.

Dishwashers and washing machines can take a lot of hot water, but newer models also self-heat their own water, reducing the demand on your tankless system.

Look for a tankless water heater with a good efficiency rating, which usually takes between 78% and 87%, as well as the ENEGRYSTAR designation.

20 Reasons why the future is so bright for solar, you’ve gotta to wear shades.

Just how prevalent is solar power in the United States these days? In 2014, the U.S. Solar industry achieved yet another record year, growing by 34% over 2013 to install nearly 7,000 megawatts (MW) of solar electric capacity. Within the photovoltaic (PV) sector, over 6,200 MW of capacity was installed, led by the residential and utility segments, which grew by 51% and 38%, respectively.

The way the industry has been booming from one year to the next, it’s no surprise that 2015 has been even better, and 2016 will build on that momentum.

While solar is still a small overall part of America's energy mix, this type of growth shows that it will continue to boom and experts predict that solar will become the world's largest source of electricity by 2050.

The U.S. looks to follow in the footsteps of countries like Germany, where 63% of their entire electricity is supplied through solar, and Japan and China who together make up more than 50% of the world’s solar industry.

Here are 20 statistics about the U.S. Solar industry in 2015...and beyond:

1. The U.S. installed 1,306 megawatts of direct current (MWdc) of solar PV in the first quarter of 2015, marking the sixth consecutive quarter in which the U.S. added more than 1 gigawatt of direct current (GWdc) of PV installations. And experts suggest that by the end of the year it will reach 7.9 GWdc, which is a 27% increase over 2014.

2. The industry grew 418% from 2010 to 2014. Within the last two years, the U.S. installed more solar than the previous 38 years combined.

3. Through the first quarter of 2015, nearly one-fourth of cumulative residential solar installations have now come on-line without any state incentive. 

4. Collectively, more than 51% of all new electric generating capacity in the U.S. came from solar in the first quarter of 2015.

5. Every three minutes, someone in the United States switches to solar.

6. The residential and utility PV market segments each added more capacity than the natural gas industry brought on-line in the first quarter of 2015.

7. Of the 68 MWdc of community solar installations to date, more than one-third of that total has come on-line since 2014.

8. More than 5 GWdc of centralized PV has now been procured by utilities based on the economic competitiveness that solar has with fossil-fuel alternatives.

9. There are now over 22.7 GW of cumulative solar electric capacity operating in the U.S., enough to power more than 4.6 million average American homes.

10. Growth in 2014 was led by the utility-scale sector, which grew 38% over 2013 to reach nearly 4 (GW), and the residential sector, which crossed the 1 GW barrier for the first time while growing 51% over 2013. So far in 2015 utility scale segment is dominating once again, with 729 MW of installed capacity.

11. Since the implementation of the Solar Investment Tax Credit, in 2006, the cost to install solar has dropped by more than 75%.

12. On January 1, 2017, the 30% federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) is scheduled to drop to 10% for third party owned residential, non-residential, and utility PV projects under Section 48 of the tax code, while the credit for purchases residential PV under Section 25d is scheduled to expire entirely.

13. In just over five years, the U.S. PV market, which doesn’t include concentrated solar plants, has witnessed a fourfold expansion, from an estimated $3 billion in 2009 to $13.4 billion last year.

14. While residential costs have dropped by 45% since 2010, utility-scale costs have dropped more significantly, with recent contracts at prices below $0.05/kWh.

15. There are many major U.S. corporations, including Walmart, Macy’s and IKEA, which are using solar at an incredible rate.

16. It would take as little as 0.0005% of the globe that would need to be covered in solar panels to power the entire world and knock out our carbon footprint.

17. The top three states for solar installations in 2015 are 1) California. 2) New York. and 3) Arizona. Other states such as Massachusetts, New Jersey, Hawaii, Maryland, Connecticut, Colorado, and Texas are also a huge part of the solar boom in the U.S.

18. Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring California's utilities to get 33 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by the end of 2020.

19. More than 31,000 solar jobs were added in the U.S. between November 2013 and November 2014. With 85 % of those jobs being new, rather than jobs that already existed but which added additional solar responsibilities. There are now around 200,000 people in the U.S. with jobs related to solar power, a number that’s increased by 87 percent over the last five years.

20. The SunShot Initiative was announced by the Department of Energy and aims to reduce the cost of solar power by 75% from 2010 to 2020. The name is based on "moon shot", Kennedy's target of reaching the moon within the decade.

Goals:

Residential system prices reduced from $6/W to $1.50/W

Commercial system prices reduced from $5/W to $1.25/W

Utility-scale system prices reduced from $4/W to $1.00/W (CSP, CPV and PV)

50 Jaw-dropping facts about planet Earth.

1. The earth is about 4.53 billion years old.

2. The Earth orbits the sun at about 67,000 miles per hour.

3. That means when you or I are standing still, we’re actually moving at 1,000 miles per hour!

4. The earth’s rotation is gradually slowing at an imperceptible rate of 17 milliseconds per hundred years, which means that if human beings are still around in 140 million years, the length of each of their days will be 25 hours. 

5. It takes only 8 minutes and 20 seconds for sunlight to reach the earth, a rate that distinguished the speed of light.

6. Every planet in our solar system is named after a Greco-Roman mythological god except for ours. 

7. In fact, no one really knows who first named our planet “earth.” The name comes from the Old English word “eorthe” (ground) and Old High Germanic word “erda” (soil).

8. The deepest point on the earth is the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, which lies on the ocean floor, 35,813 feet (bigger than Mount Everest) below sea level, or around 7 miles. Only three people have ever been there. 

9. The biggest mountain range on earth (that’s not underwater) is the Andes, which extends 4,300 miles, at 420 miles wide, through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador.

10. But the longest mountain range of all is the mid ocean range system, which lies underwater and is about 20 times bigger than the Andes Mountains. Almost all of it is volcanic. 

11. The hottest place on earth is El Azizia, Libya, where NASA recorded temperatures of 136 degrees Fahrenheit. 

12. The place with the lowest consistent temperatures on earth is Antarctica, where it’s often minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

13. But the coldest temperature recorded on earth was at Vostok Station in northern Russia, where the thermostat fell to minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

14. 70% of the earth’s surface is covered with water. 

15. Yet mankind has only explored 5% of the Earth’s oceans. 

16. The Pacific Basin holds half of all water on earth, and is so big it could contain all seven continents. 

17. 97% of the water on earth is contained in the ocean, with the remaining 3% in lakes, rivers, and the fresh water supply.

18. And the Antarctic ice gap holds 70% of our total freshwater supply and 90% of all the ice on earth. 

19. But not all water is good water; there are actually three “deadly” lakes on earth, Lakes Nyos, Monoun and Kivu. Located in the African nation of Cameroon and then o the border between The Congo and Rawanda, respectively, these bodies of water lie above pockets of magma that leak dangerous levels of carbon dioxide that form carbonic acid, poisoning the water and killing any wildlife. Tragically, in 1986, Lake Nyos emitted a CO2 explosion that killed thousands of people and livestock in surrounding villages. 

20. The largest earthquake in recorded U.S. history occurred in Prince William Sound in Alaska in 2011, with a magnitude of 9.2 on the Richter Scale.

21. Of course scientific methods to measure earthquakes didn’t exist before around 1900, but the largest recorded earthquake in the world since then took place in Chile in 1960. 

22. The 9.5 magnitude quake left 2,000,000 people homeless in that country, and caused a tsunami so big that it slammed into Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, and the west coast of the U.S. simultaneously.

23. All of our planet’s earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain ranges were formed by the movement (expansion or squeezing) of the tectonic plates.

24. Earth is the only planet in the entire Milky Way with tectonic plates.

25. Our earth’s surface is constantly moving, as the tectonic plates shift. However, they move at uneven rates. The Pacific plates move at 4cm per year but the North Atlantic plate moves at only 1cm every annually.

26. There are about 1,500 potentially active volcanoes around the world, spanning 80% of the surface of the globe. 500 or so of these have erupted in our recorded history.

27. The most active volcano on earth is the Stromboli Volcano in southern Italy, which has been erupting almost continuously for 2,000 years, earning it the nickname "Lighthouse of the Mediterranean.”

28. There are about 8.74 million species of animals and plans on earth. 

29. That includes 6,199 amphibian, 9,956 bird, 30,000 fish, and 950,000 insect species. 

30. Each year, about 10,000 new species are discovered.

31. The natural extinction rate for species is about 1-5 lost per year. However, we’re losing (or killing off) thousands or even tens of thousands of species every year, at an average rate of a dozen per day!

32. The Amazon rainforest contains one third of the Earth’s total land species.

33. Human beings really made no negative environmental impact on the world until the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, little more than 100 years ago. 

34. Since then, we’ve depleted resources, polluted our environment, and killed off species at a catastrophic rate.

35. We call our planet “the globe,” but it’s actually not round. The official shape of the earth is an obate spheroid, which means it’s spherical but somewhat flattened at the poles.

36. The largest living structures on earth are the ocean’s coral reefs, which are made of countless tiny living polyp organisms, hosting the highest density of life forms on the planet. You can actually see many coral reefs from outer space.

37. Aside from the reefs, the largest living organism ever discovered is a mushroom fungus found in Oregon that grew to 2,200 acres!

38. The oldest tree on earth is called Methuselah, a bristlecone pine tree in the White Mountains of California that is almost 5,000 years old. 

39. The biggest tree on earth is also located in California, this one in the Sequoia National Park. Named General Sherman, the massive tree is a giant sequoia that ‘s the largest tree in the world by volume, reaching 275 feet high with a 25-foot diameter.

40. But the tallest tree on earth is the Hyperion Tree, a coast redwood in Northern California that stands more than 379 feet tall.

41. About 200 million years ago, all of the earth’s continents were smashed together into a single landmass or supercontinent called Pangaea, though it gradually broke up and drifted apart as the plates shifted. 

42. Our planet’s magnetic north pole is creeping further north at a significant rate of about 10 miles every year.

43. The earth’s magnetic poles actually have reversed every 200,000 to 300,000 year throughout the last 20 million years. However, it currently hasn’t done so in about that twice that time.

44. The earth’s outer crust is composed mostly of lightweight granite. The crust that makes up the continents and landmasses is about 18 to 30 miles thick, while the denser basalt crust at the bottom of the oceans is only 5 to 6 miles thick.

45. The core of the earth is about 3,700 miles below the crust and is made up of solid iron-nickel allow. It’s no wonder that the earth has the greatest density of any planet we’ve been able to measure, at 5.52 grams per cubic centimeter. 

46. In fact, the planet’s largest source of heat other than the sun is the interior core, which emits one hundred billion billion calories of heat/energy to the surface every year. That’s so much heat that if we could find a way to harness it, it would provide enough energy for everyone on earth three times over.

47. Our moon isn’t just nice to look at; its mass actually stabilizes the Earth’s orbit and without it, the swings in temperature and climate would render our world uninhabitable.

48. Did you know that our Earth had a twin at “birth?” When it was first formed after the Big Bang, there was a second planet in our orbit about the size of Mars, called Theia. 

49. They coexisted in orbit for several hundred million years until they collided and the Earth absorbed most of the planet’s mass, helping to establish the perfect gravity to establish our atmosphere.

50. Every year, about 30,00 particles of space dust enter our planet’s atmosphere. Thankfully, most of them burn up upon entry, resulting in shooting stars instead of burning comets that smash our surface and cause giant craters.