Our factory Moen shower valve controls temperature, but lacks the push-pull volume control. In the spirit of extending our fresh water tank, we added a ball valve. We also conserve water by having a shower sprayer that is spring closed.
This has been our mode for many years and we also only run with water pump 24/7. Two showers a day and along with other normal water uses, a full fresh water tank lasts about one week.
We use a shower head with a sliding shutoff, does get hotter then colder, your way probably not as much
We just run water to get wet and then shut off and soap up then turn back on and rinse off, keeping it simple. We also only run on the water tank and pump and can make a tank last a little over a week.
Barry, I like the sink sprayer shower head. They work great at managing water use and still does a great job.
I wrote up a hot water recirculation project a couple years ago. A pretty easy process to get hot water from the source to the manifold without running cold water down the drain. I figure we save about 5-7 gallons per fill. Maybe more.
Hot Water Recirculation (http://www.foreforums.com/index.php?topic=23736.msg185394#msg185394)
Thanks for the ideas. We also wet & turn off water, but our turn off is just releasing the spring-closed faucet.
Do many coaches have our type of Moen shower faucet that is fully on or fully off with only hot/cold mix temperature control? We have even changed out the cartridge with a free new one from Moen. That is why we added the ball-valve.
BTW, Moen supplies parts for a lifetime at no cost.
Mine is a 98 built sept 97 and I have the normal house style Pull on (more pull, more flow) and turn left/right for temp
Somewhere along the way your original valve probably got replaced with a pressure balancing mixing vavlve. We replaced the outer bits this last spring. (Brass to Brushed nickel) the cartridge was still good to we stayed with that. Pull on/push off but ours controls flow by how far you pull it out. Turn for temp. We looked at the newer pressure balancing mixing valves that turn all the way clockwise to turn off and counterclockwise through cold to warm to hot to set temp. No flow volume control. That is done with the shower head now. That valve would have meant a whole new valve body. More than we wanted to do. We got a very nice 1.5 gpm shower head too. We shut the water off while scrubbing. Temp varies a bit with volume. Much longer path for hot but the adjustment on the valve is quick. We used a commercial line from Moen, the kind they use in hotels, much less espensive than residential.