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)