How often do you think about your water heater? John Hynds, co-founder of Torii Industries, joins me to discuss their high-efficiency water heaters, a cheaper, more sustainable alternative to the water heaters we know today.
About our guest:
John Hynds is the Co-Founder of Torii Industries, a company pushing the boundaries of smarter, more efficient water heaters. Through high-efficiency technology and an emphasis on sustainability, his one-of-a-kind service aspires to redefine water. A holder of two US Patents, John has found himself in Director level roles in both Sales and Engineering organizations. As a former US Marine, John started his civilian career in Bio-Tech, then transitioned to High-Tech in the mid 1980s.
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Evolving Technologies – Water Heaters With John Hynds
This episode is about water heaters. It’s something that we all use in our house every day. Maybe we don’t think too much about it but there is an emerging technology there that will be a lot more sustainable. My guest is John Hynds and he is the Cofounder of Torii Industries, which is a company pushing the boundaries of smarter and more efficient water heaters through high-efficiency technology and an emphasis on sustainability. His one-of-a-kind service aspires to redefine water heaters. Here’s my conversation with John.
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Welcome, John. Your business, I may be simplifying it here, is water heaters. That’s what we’re going to be talking about. I mentioned I don’t know that much about water heaters, so I’m looking forward to learning what you’re doing.
I’m happy to talk about water heaters, for sure.
It’s something that we all have to have in our houses. I think we should all know a little more about what we’re installing and thinking long-term about what that means, the cost of operating them throughout and all of that stuff. They seem to break every eleven years. That’s all I know about them.
Our statistics are roughly ten years, depending on the manufacturer and model. We’re using pretty much a ten-year timeline for life on existing models and how they work.
I saw something on your website about if you took all the water heaters in the US, what was that statistic?
There are 5,000 a day water heaters replaced in the United States and 65% of them wind up in landfills. The carbon footprint from the water heaters that we’re using is the equivalent of two small European countries.
That’s depressing and a little overwhelming. Your company is doing something about that. Why don’t you tell me about it?
Torii Industries at ToriiWay.com has been working with the National Lab, and we have exclusive rights to some of their intellectual property. They invented graphite foam. If you think of a piece of pumice and you put water through it, the granite itself is in an induction coil. It’s an electric heater. If you put that granite inside an induction coil, it heats up extremely rapidly and hot. We’re going to modulate and make sure the temperatures are happening for the appropriate water out.
We’re calling it evolution in the water heating industry. We are changing the technology and also the business model. With the technology, this is going to be a much smaller unit. Think about something approximately the size of a scuba tank. It could be mounted on a wall in the garage, a closet or someplace. In my old house, I had to lose a quarter of my garage for the water heater in terms of usable space. With this unit, we’re also going to be integrating sensors into the unit. It will be connected to the grid so we can talk to the grid for heating water. We’re doing tank and tankless with this. It’s the same fundamental heating element.
A standard water heater runs on 240 volts and 30, 40 to 50 amps or something in that range depending on the heating elements. Our prototypes, which we plan on going into UL testing with, run on 120 volt and 15 amps. We’re on a 240-volt and we’re looking at 5.3 times less kilowatt-hour usage if we’re heating the same amount of water, which we don’t think we’re going to have to, especially in our tankless models.
Maybe we should back up a second, John. As I already mentioned, I don’t know anything about water heaters more than the average person. You talked about either tankless or tank. Can you say what the difference is between those? Most people have this round barrel-looking thing that is about a little shorter than they are in their basement. That would be a standard old water heater.
That is a good differentiation point. The tank is the one that fills up with water, the water gets heated, sits there and waits until you’re ready to use it. The water heater will, intermittently throughout the day, heat it, and then it cools a little. It was on and off all day long, but that water is standing there ready for your usage. A tankless model is something that can heat the water when you need it. It’s like the Insta-Hot that you have seen near some sinks. It’s instant hot water right there. That is similar to what a tankless model is but on a little larger scale so it can handle the flow for an entire house at once if it need be, typically.
The tankless can be more energy-efficient but they do require much greater current typically to get the water because you’re immediately looking at the water coming into the house out of the ground. Maybe it’s between 40 and 60 degrees. It has to move that up to 100 or 115 degrees in a very short span of time and adjust the flow. It can suck the amperage to get that done. Conversely, when it’s off, it’s off. When it’s on, it’s on. It’s not running on and off all day so they can be a lot more efficient for sure.
Your system is even different than that. It just requires less energy to run on-demand situations. Do I have that right?
That’s very much so. It’s 5.3 times less kilowatts to heat the same amount of water. Let’s say you pay $2.20 a month for your water heating energy costs. This would be the equivalent of $0.41.
Is this your own proprietary system or is it a new invention that everybody can adopt?
Out of those two, I would use the word proprietary. Working with one of the National Labs, we have exclusive rights for water heating to use the graphite foam that they have created. They have licensed the rights to us. We also have a patent for the induction coil technology to heat that because we also need that process to be very efficient as well. Those two core components are the secret sauce as it were like what’s in the eleven herbs and spices. These are our secret sauce.
What is your market for this new system? Is it all houses in the United States? Is it certain industries? What’s your vision on that?
It is frankly all houses, apartments and small office complexes. The units can be running parallel if you’ve got a very large heating system to supply water for. The unit itself is very scalable. We were not designing it for new builds or existing builds. It would be compatible installs with both. We were trying to get it small and simple enough that a homeowner could do it. We would love to have a plumber do it. In some areas, there are code issues where the plumber needs to do it, but we were making it simple. It’s also part of our business plan to facilitate a relationship between the homeowner, the plumber and Torii Industries.
One of the things about new green technologies, which we are, is they’re very expensive. I would love to own a Tesla and drive an electric car but that’s not going to happen. I don’t have that money. If you think about it, we’re trying to be more of that Chevy Volt so we’re not crazy priced. We’re changing the way a person gets hot water. We were calling it Hot Water as a Service. This is a service model. Once we get to our final product, we’re looking at about a $700 install.
That’s the unit and install to put the unit in your home. We will put it on the net. It will be communicating with the grid and our Cloud. You will be able to adjust it through your iPhone. We will send you back your energy savings and all that good info that you would love to have but at a very low capital expense going in. You don’t have to spend a lot of money and you don’t have to spend money on a warranty. This always kills me. I have to pay a manufacturer to warranty the device they manufactured.
It doesn’t make sense. If you made it good, I shouldn’t have to do this. We’re going to bring the cost barrier down for people. It is about $700 to get in and then a $25 a month subscription, which is going to keep us on the web and keep you getting your information. When we were developing the business model, we wanted to get the plumbers included and make them part of this relationship. Part of that subscription is going to go to that plumber every month.
Years ago, I owned a business. I owned one of the first low-carb stores in the country. Once the big box stores got in on that, they could go to the same distributor and buy it in such volume. I couldn’t compete. I was literally in one of those stores. I called my wife and said, “I’m looking at my product on their shelves. It’s cheaper for me to buy it at their store than from the distributor.” On that call, we’re done so we’re not discounting our pricing upfront for the big stores and everyone else to get great discounts. We’re going to put the money on the backside.
If you install it, it’s almost like building an annuity. It’s a financial term that I like using. You will get $5 a month for that unit. Let’s say a plumber installs 100 of those. That’s $6,000 a year and the next year, they install another. They would compound that over time. What we ask of them is with the sensor technology we’re putting in there, we want to be able to detect a failure before it happens, go back to that plumber and say, “We’re shipping you a new unit. Contact Bob and Susan. Arrange to replace the unit. Please send the old one back to us.” It’s not going to a landfill. It’s coming to us.
Do you fix it and put it back out?
The carbon footprint from the water heaters that we’re currently using is the equivalent to that of two small European countries.
Correct and/or any components that we can’t recirculate. We’re calling it a circular economy, and we will make sure they are recycled in an inappropriate way. We do not want these to ever reach a landfill.
So far, your product is not out yet.
We should be in testing production in 2022.
Your product will be the size of a scuba tank. It has graphite foam on the inside, a plumber installs it for $700, and there is a subscription fee of $25 a month. A part of that goes to the plumber because he’s on-call to take care of it. Does it need to be replaced every year?
The technical term is a meantime between failure and that is something you, engineering-wise, calculate when you produce your product based on all the components. We were looking at a minimum meantime between failure of ten years. We’re looking for ten or greater.
Is it similar to the water heater that you have to buy unless you buy the stainless steel water heater?
It depends on the elements, the hardness of your water and the turbidity particles in your water. There are a lot of things that can go on inside a water heater and we don’t want that to destroy the experience for the end-user.
Destroy the experience of using a water heater because that experience can be upsetting sometimes.
Turn the shower on hot and all you get is cold water. We want to detect that failure coming and say, “We got it.” We’re going to go ahead and replace it before that happens.
Essentially, it’s an on-demand system but with this heating unit, it’s much faster.
We will have both, an on-demand and a tank one. The reason for the tank is it gives us the ability to communicate. We were working with a company that got a device that connects us directly into the smart grid and the smart grid knows when solar is mostly on the grid, wind power or any green sustainable energy. They can communicate with our Torii water heater. It will heat that tank then. We will make sure that the water is being heated at the lowest or optimally least carbon-impactful time relative to the grid. If the water did cool, we have the ability to run it back through that graphite foam to bring it up to the temperature that you desire.
That’s what makes it more of a green product.
Both of them. The fact that we’re going to run off standard house current, not a big and beefy 240-volt line. It’s just standard like when you plug your coffee machine. It will be on the same type of circuit as that.
It’s too bad it’s not going to be available for a while but it’s good to have people thinking about these things. Do you have an education program for all the plumbers? They’re the ones who would be suggesting it. In my experience, it’s often the plumber who says, “You need this product,” and then you say, “I need that product.” Maybe you don’t do that much research about it, unfortunately, and then they install that product. If the plumbers know about it, then they would be suggesting your product. Is that the idea?
Yes. We will have the training and possibly certification or something for the plumbers so that we know that they’re competent. We want everything to go well on an install or even a replacement. From a standard water heater, I don’t see physically much difference in terms of water in, water out, plumbing connections, making sure you have a pressure discharge and all the appropriate code items to be met.
The flip side would be then connecting the heater to a Wi-Fi infrastructure or what it is that we’re finally going to use to get to the internet. We’re looking at developing a simple app where they might be able to use their phone for that and make it very simple for them. Our goal is for this to be lightweight, one-man carry, and a very quick and simple installation or replacement. We’re trying to remove the two-man roll the big truck. Forget all of that.
I’m a homeowner. I have a hot water heater. Do I wait until it dies? Would I have to have this in mind and wait until that fails?
No. When we hit production in 2022 and these are available, it is possible to have the old one taken out and a Torii water heater put in. It’s going to use your existing plumbing, your water in, and your existing hot water out. We’re looking at some future models to include cold water in and out for the house so we can put that on monitoring as well. We want to look at water quality and water turbidity, get a lot more statistics and look at leak detection for the home. We’re starting with the hot water and we’re already planning subsequent feature benefits that we can put into the product.
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. Why would a homeowner switch to your product?
We did market research on this and I found the demographics. We had geography, age groups and financial brackets. Everything was spread around. The why has a lot to do with age. It was very interesting to me. I call it the 42-year-old divine, and I’m well over 42, so I’m going to speak to that first. The people over 42 said, “That’s all cool. Does it pencil out? Am I going to save money over time versus doing what I could do at Lowe’s or Home Depot?”The answer is yes, it does.
For the people under 42, when we talk about being clean, sustainable, giving back, and making the planet a better place, they want to be a part of helping to heal the planet. They want to be involved and they want things in their life. I’m glad it works on both sides of those models but it was very interesting across the demographics and the geographies. It was more of an age split in terms of a psychological need, whether it be the pencil out or the environment.
That makes sense because maybe a lot of people over 42 don’t care.
I care about both but my experience says, “Do the math.” That’s the way I was raised. I have been in business and it’s always, “Do the math.”
Sometimes there are clients who are willing to pay more for doing the right thing or having less of an impact on the Earth. I hate to say this but they’re going to be around longer than we are. It is an interesting subject to me. How do you attract people to sustainability? Are there certain words that turn people off? How do you do that?
I’m trying to do that in my practice, trying to get high-performance renovations going in, and at least getting people to think about a variety of aspects about it so that they could have less of an impact. Sometimes people say they’re not interested. What can I do? There’s nothing much except to make suggestions of things that would be less impactful without telling them that I’m choosing this because it would be a better choice.
I have had those discussions with people. I spoke with a gentleman when I was in Lowe’s looking at the different types of water heaters and their pricing. I was discussing what we were doing. To go back to the age thing, I approach the questions based on what I can ascertain to the individual and what’s going to resonate with them. When I talk to someone like that, honest to God, his first question was, essentially, “Does it pencil out?” I said, “Yes and you’re going to use a lot less energy and reduce your carbon footprint.” I brought up the positive and he was like, “That’s cool.”
Sometimes there are clients who are willing to pay more for doing the right thing and having less impact on the environment.
It wasn’t the lead thing. We can impact all the positives and then talk about finances. I generally lead that discussion. If I were designing in your shoes, I would say, “We’ve got some excellent units.” Depending on the age, let’s say it’s an older client. We’ll use me. Let’s say you’re talking to me, “We’ve got great units and they come in at these different price levels. This one also has so on and so forth about the environment and sustainability. This might be something when your kids visit they would love to see in your house.” Build some positives into it for them. Kids love this idea for sustainability and conservation. They haven’t asked much, “Does it pencil out?”
They might not have spent enough time penciling things out. I have had three water heaters in my home-owning career, for example. I’m more aware of how much it is every time it goes. It’s having a system that tells me ahead of when it’s going to break, which is usually New Year’s Eve or some major holiday where you have to pay people a lot more to come out. Not having hot water all of a sudden is an inconvenience. It would be nice to be able to know that it’s coming and do something about it proactively. One of the points that I’m most intrigued by is that it’s being monitored.
Folks like that idea. We have even had people ask, “Could you put in the teenager shower function, please?” “What’s that?” They go, “Turn it off after ten minutes. You’re done.”
Can you do that?
Technically, yes.
That could be a big selling point. I hate the sound of running water, which is another weird thing about me. When my kids are in the shower, I’m not mean about it but I feel like 12 minutes to 15 minutes is a long enough shower for sure. Maybe it’s icy cold at that point.
Slowly, but yes.
That would take it out of my hands. It wouldn’t be me saying, “Your shower is long enough now.” It’s not me. It’s the water heater. I used to have a timer in there that I would have them turn when they got in there. I don’t know if they ever turned it. They probably turned it once or twice. It’s supposed to be a reminder like, “This is a long enough shower.” It didn’t work.
I will bring that back to our CTO and let him know.
What if their water heater breaks this week or next month and your product isn’t ready yet?
We’re not ready yet. That’s what I was talking to the gentleman in Lowe’s about. He was helping his mom replace her broken heater. I said, “I’m sorry, we can’t help you. We can in a year.” He was bemoaning the price of the heater, the install and the warranty. I said, “If people wanted to keep tabs on us, we are putting together an email list so we can update people where we’re at in our development phases and our launch.” That’s at ToriiWay.com. There’s a sign-up there.
We’re also looking to sign up Architects. We want to educate those people that can influence the design of buildings. Maybe they’re building a Green complex for a client, apartments, or condos. We can help with that energy footprint and enhance your sustainability. We don’t want to just come in at the plumber or the end-user. We want to come in at the community level as best we can.
Are you on Instagram, TikTok or anything like that?
We do have one TikTok video that went out. We’re on LinkedIn, Twitter and we have our webpage. We will be expanding our social footprint as we have more to show and offer.
I’m going to look up TikTok and see what that’s like.
We’re open to comments, suggestions, good, better and different. We want to learn and do the best we can to make this product as best a user would want it to be. That includes the plumber as the user when he’s installing it, the Architect when they’re specking it in and the end-user when they’re adjusting the phone app to turn off the water heater on their teenager in the shower.
You can do it yourself. That’s another point.
Please reach out to us. There’s a comments page. We have been engaged in emails with some folks already. We want to learn and do this right, and right is generally what the customer wants. We want to make sure we’re there.
Thanks, John. Thanks for coming on.
Thanks, Katharine. I appreciate the time.
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