Over Heated
Rinnai shows Californians how much energy they waste.
Motorists along California's highway 405 now have something else to look at: a billboard displaying the millions of dollars wasted each day by California homes and businesses that use traditional hot water tanks.
According to tankless water heater manufacturer Rinnai—the company responsible for the billboard—Californians with traditional hot water tanks are wasting approximately $5.1 million a day to heat their water.
“California has always been a trend-setting state when it comes to adopting energy-efficient technologies,” says Ervin Cash, Rinnai's senior vice president. “Our hope is that the nearly 200,000 drivers who go past our billboard each day will recognize the positive economic impact of going tankless and decide to make the move to tankless water heating.”
Rinnai says the billboard is meant to educate residents that the 13 million single-family homes in California waste about $1.9 billion a year, or more than $3,500 a minute. Traditional tanks store a limited amount of water and constantly heat and reheat it, whether or not it is needed. A tankless system only heats water that runs through the unit's heat exchanger, thus saving money and energy. - N.F. Maynard
Asset Allocation
A Colorado builder applies for a bank charter as a way to grow its mortgage business.
Sometime soon, the executive team running Colorado Springs, Colo.–based Classic Homes hopes to buy or start up a bank, through which Classic would expand its mortgage and title businesses.
Last year, Classic merged its title and mortgage companies with The Corundum Group, a financial consulting and investment services firm. That merger created Central Bancorp, a holding company that is 51 percent owned by Classic's principals—Chairman Jeff Smith, CEO Doug Stimple, CFO George Lentz, and Executive Vice President of Marketing Dan Winter. Bancorp has applied for a bank charter and has hired Scott Yeoman, a 25-year commercial banking veteran, who is the proposed president of Central Bank & Trust.
Classic's management team declined BUILDER's interview requests. But Yeoman notes that Smith and Lentz came from the banking industry and confirms a report in the Colorado Springs Gazette that the owners want to use the bank to boost Classic's mortgage operations—which made $225 million in loans in 2006—to more than $1 billion in annual loans within a decade and to expand the bank itself to five branches over that period.
However, the bank won't do any direct business with the home builder because, Yeoman explains, regulators frown upon lending institutions engaging in activities with insiders. - J. Caulfield