Providing insulation to the pipes that come out of your functional water heater would evidently make the water coming out of it longer to cool itself down. This would mean, of course, that you don't actually have to pump out more damn hot water so as to keep the first gallons of water nice and warm. Logically, you would have to know by now that the more you use your functional water heater, the more it eats up on your monthly energy consumption. Picking just the right materials for insulating your water pipes would be a better thing for you to worry on than such things as not taking a hot shower at all during
cold winter weather!