Wash my hands, turn on the hot water, cold water ok. I'll wait...waiting...waiting...waiting...still cold water...1 minute later I just gave up. So I wash my hands with cold water.

Taking a shower is even more of an excruciating experience. First, waiting for the hot water, then getting a blast of cold water during the middle of a hot shower...then back to hot. Turning off the water during the middle of a shower is a bad idea....wait for the hot water again, oh another blast of cold water.

Not impressed with this technology at the moment. Perhaps you have to get into the high-end-very expensive units...I dunno. What you save in energy, you burn a lot in water consumption. I probably used double the amount of water to shower and triple the amount for washing my hands.

Did you just get the unit?

No. I was staying at a home that has a tankless. After that experience one would have to pry my 50 gallon tank from my warm, clean hands...

BTW I bumped your furnace thread a few days ago.

http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=322701&page=4

Our tankless system works well for us but we also have a storage tank with circulation pump to keep the hot water much closer to the end source. I can have all 3 showers running with someone filling a bathtub at the same time and never run out of hot water.

Interesting. So essentially this would be considered a hybrid water heater? Your setup sounds more promising and much less of a compromise to me than a full on tankless system.

I think with any system, distance from heater comes into play more than type of heater. We currently have a 70 gal heater in the garage, set at 160F, and our shower is on the opposite end of the house (~100 feet of tubing). It takes a good minute for the water to start getting warm. Since our piping path goes subterranean twice, the water has to heat the area around the pipes (dirt, air, insulation, etc) before passing the heat to the user.

An old employer of min in California had a 110 gal heater with a recirc loop (in-line pump) that took hot water to with 5 feet of any tap; almost no wait time. The loop started 30 minutes before normal work hours and went to the end of the day. I miss that system.

Certainly. But with the tankless I can use the shower right after someone and still be dealing with cold water. On the other hand with a normal water heater there would be instantaneous hot water for that person. Or someone washing their hands in the washroom a half hour later. But still, I have never waited so long than with that tankless system and even then I just gave up on the hot water while washing my hands. Never have done that before.

I have not had an issue with hot water while running showers, washer, dishwasher etc. So perhaps I have been spoiled all these years with our 50 gal water heater. What I really hated with the tankless was getting moments of cold water after the water heated up during the shower....awful!

Are you sure or have you had anyone look at your system to see if it's working properly? It sounds like there's something not working as it should.

I don`t use a tankless system.

OK you were using someone else's system. So you're basing you opinion on tankless based on a system that you don't know if it's working properly. Did you raise your concerns with the owners of the house? If you did what did they say