Is your water heater gas, electric, or something else?
Pretty much as everyone else has mentioned a water circulator pump would solve your first issue with taking several minutes to get hot water to your shower. The pump is usually added near your water heater and will circulate water through your hot water pipes so hot water should always be readily available at your taps.
Personally, since I had to redo the plumbing in my home anyway, I added dedicated return lines to the water heater. A friend of mine had to run his kitchen faucet for over 5 minutes to get even lukewarm water, but due to the plumbing being a long run behind finished walls we opted to install a kit with a manifold that uses the cold water line as the return. I don’t recall the brand, but it was less than $200 from Amazon and came with a pump with integral 24 hour timer and a manifold with a built-in thermostatic valve that closes so that once the water is hot it stops the flow, and opens to restart it when it cools off again. This is useful because although the cold water at that faucet isn’t as cold as without the pump, it’s not the same temperature as the hot water. With this type of setup you can also add additional manifolds at other faucets that you would like to have always hot water at. A kit like this wouldn’t be easy to add to a shower, but installing it for the bathroom sink next to the shower would have basically the same effect.
It would be best to insulate all the hot water piping that you can access, but if you can’t get to most of it (ie, it’s behind walls and in ceilings) the circulator system will be less efficient but still effective. Most of these circulator systems involve a timer, so that you’re not running the pump needlessly while you’re typically asleep or at work, but some offer manual start setups also. Keep in mind there will be a small increase in your electric and water heating utility to run the pump and maintain temperature in the pipes, though this will be partly offset by water savings if you were previously running water until it got hot before using it. With the weather and everything going on in my home I never noticed a definitive water bill reduction or gas and electric increase since installing the pump.
The issue with serving to run out of hot water faster without someone taking a shower before you doesn’t make much sense unless there’s a placebo thing going on or an issue with your water heater thermostats or heating element. Neither would be a call to replace the entire heater unit, though.
Is your water heater gas, electric, or something else?
Pretty much as everyone else has mentioned a water circulator pump would solve your first issue with taking several minutes to get hot water to your shower. The pump is usually added near your water heater and will circulate water through your hot water pipes so hot water should always be readily available at your taps.
Personally, since I had to redo the plumbing in my home anyway, I added dedicated return lines to the water heater. A friend of mine had to run his kitchen faucet for over 5 minutes to get even lukewarm water, but due to the plumbing being a long run behind finished walls we opted to install a kit with a manifold that uses the cold water line as the return. I don’t recall the brand, but it was less than $200 from Amazon and came with a pump with integral 24 hour timer and a manifold with a built-in thermostatic valve that closes so that once the water is hot it stops the flow, and opens to restart it when it cools off again. This is useful because although the cold water at that faucet isn’t as cold as without the pump, it’s not the same temperature as the hot water. With this type of setup you can also add additional manifolds at other faucets that you would like to have always hot water at. A kit like this wouldn’t be easy to add to a shower, but installing it for the bathroom sink next to the shower would have basically the same effect.
It would be best to insulate all the hot water piping that you can access, but if you can’t get to most of it (ie, it’s behind walls and in ceilings) the circulator system will be less efficient but still effective. Most of these circulator systems involve a timer, so that you’re not running the pump needlessly while you’re typically asleep or at work, but some offer manual start setups also. Keep in mind there will be a small increase in your electric and water heating utility to run the pump and maintain temperature in the pipes, though this will be partly offset by water savings if you were previously running water until it got hot before using it. With the weather and everything going on in my home I never noticed a definitive water bill reduction or gas and electric increase since installing the pump.
The issue with serving to run out of hot water faster without someone taking a shower before you doesn’t make much sense unless there’s a placebo thing going on or an issue with your water heater thermostats or heating element. Neither would be a call to replace the entire heater unit, though.