Rusty Water Heater

I was first "turned on" to the world of environmental stewardship when my water heater rusted out 11 years ago.  I was new to home ownership, and wanted to do my due diligence in selecting a new water heater. I was looking for quality, low maintenance, and high efficiency, so I started researching online.  I had traveled internationally before and had used "on-demand" water heaters in Egypt, and was very dissatisfied, but I came across some information about new larger models and how they outperformed the models used commonly in other parts of the world.  Of course I was intrigued, so I kept researching. 

It turns out that tank-style water heaters are common only in the US; the rest of the world prefers the tankless approach.  Not only does the tankless water heater save money by turning off when not needed, but it also provides an endless supply of hot water, so you never run out.  The only trick for me was going to be finding the right sized model so two or three end points (showers, washing machine, dishwasher, etc) could all get hot water at the same time.  I settled on a Takagi TK-2 since we had natural gas already available, but on my next house that was all electric, I had to try different models.  I found out that some of the electric models had really nice controllers, like the Stiebel Eltron, and others had "opportunities for improvement" (names withheld) .  I settled on the Steibel Eltron, and was very satisfied. 

So, after all this research and installing the tankless water heater in my own house, I kept coming back to the bigger issue of why I had only heard about tankless water heaters when I travelled out of the country.  There seemed to be a big marketing giant among the tank-style water heater manufacturers that had spent lots of money to convince the American public that there were no other options.  I later learned that nearly all tank-style water heaters are built in one town in Tennessee, in one of three plants.  All of the different labels and features were just there to give the public a false sense of "choices".  Amazing.  I was convinced that this had to be happening in other industries and other products, as well, and I was on my way to an amazing world of discovery about the environment and the world of big business.