Mike wrote:
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.

If I did my calculations right, 50' of 1/2" ID pipe contains about 1/2
gallon of water. So you have to run that out, PLUS, the new hot water
will cool as it travels through the cold pipe until the pipe warms up
enough. If your pipes are larger, obviously even more water will have
to run through.

Measure it, you're probably draining 3/4 of a gallon or more to get hot
water.