The originally hot water sits in two stories of pipe and cools.
You have to move that much out of the pipes. You could look at
a recirculating system. You could look at an in-line flow
actuated heater. Both are expensive to install and give better
comfort and performance

Thanks for the info. I understand that the pipes between the heater
and the faucet cools off, it just seems that it takes a loooong time to
finally get hot water. I thought maybe doing some water heater
maintenance could help as it hasn't been done in several years.

Thanks again...

Mike