Taco product tackles hot-water dilemma

ENERGY &  THE ENVIRONMENT
ENERGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

With nearly 100 years in operation under its belt, Taco Inc. has the enviable position of being both a solid cornerstone of the manufacturing industry in Rhode Island as well as a flexible, innovative company. Its SmartPlus domestic hot water circulator stands as a testament to the way that Taco is able to straddle those two spheres.
Convenience and environmental efficiency are closely aligned with Taco’s mission of providing comfort to its customers. According to Vice President of Brand Marketing Mark Chaffee, the SmartPlus system provides an answer to a common problem that affects both convenience and conservation: having to wait for hot water when you turn on the tap. “It seems like a strange concept that in 2014, we don’t get hot water right away,” he said.
Chaffee estimates that the average family of four can waste up to 12,000 gallons of water per year waiting for hot water to arrive. This represents an immensely wasteful depletion of resources and time; although it might not seem like such a big deal to stand outside the shower and brush your teeth while the shower heats up, these gallons can quickly add up. There is also a considerable amount of energy involved in the treatment and processing of this wasted water, said Chaffee.
“We’re talking hundreds of millions of gallons of water that we’ve done a lot of work to before we’ve wasted it,” he said. “We want to make people’s everyday lives a little more comfortable, and at the same time, we’re also able to make a big impact on the environment.”
With the SmartPlus system, a home’s hot-water usage pattern is recorded and analyzed for the first seven-day period, and calibrates itself to provide pre-heated, instantaneously available hot water accordingly. The system recalibrates itself every seven days, and is also able to sense when it should go into “vacation mode.”
Chaffee said that SmartPlus was an immediate success on the market as its customers recognized how easily it could fulfill this unmet need for comfort, convenience and conservation.
And while the system itself is a recent development that depends on state-of-the-art technology and electronics, it fits well into the overarching, forward-thinking philosophy that has helped this local, family-owned business earn global staying power.
“As a small manufacturing company in Rhode Island, you have to be innovative,” he said. “We compete against international, multibillion dollar companies that have a worldwide footprint, so you have to be able to be innovative to compete. And you have to have the new technology to keep pushing forward, but it can’t just be technology for technology’s sake. You have to use technology for practical solutions for people’s problems.”

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