I have a Home Depot-type low-flow. I spent a week alone when my wife and son went out of town, so I took the opportunity to do some savings of my own.
First thing was to turn down the water heater until showers were just tolerable without mixing in any cold. The dishwasher has a water heater option, so I use that to get the water hot enough to disinfect well. Then, I worked on perfecting my navy shower. I got it down to the following steps:
1. Brush teeth in sink.
2. Turn on hot water. The instant the water starts to get tolerably warm, plug the drain and step in.
3. Get body wet, turn off hot water.
4. Soap up.
5. Rinse hands in water at bottom of shower.
6. Shampoo hair.
7. Turn on water. (Add cold if necessary.) Rinse all at once.
8. Turn off water.
My shower still takes about 5-7 minutes, but the water is running for a total of 3 minutes or less, and I'm taking advantage of the "water warmup time" by jumping in as soon as it's tolerable, rather than running it until it's hot, then adding cold and waiting until it's comfortable. (In fact, I'm probably using the same amount now for the whole shower as I did just getting the temperature right before.)
An interesting side-effect is that I figured out just how much heat is being wasted by my poorly-insulated pipes down in the crawlspace. On a 45 degree morning, with the water heater turned down (the first mark above "vacation"), the water was nice and warm. The next morning, when it was 29 degrees outside, the water was chilly. Apparently the difference in heat loss through the pipes, indistinguishable when the water heater is set to 140 degrees, was very apparent in my experiments.
Needless to say, I'm buying some pipe insulation and getting to work this weekend.
BTW, I still do the navy shower, even though my family doesn't. Every little bit helps.
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