I'm a Sparky, so you know in need help...

[Krich]

Long story short... I was asked to wire a hot water heater by a woman who is newly separated. Her husband is enjoying hot showers with his new girlfriend while this woman, her three kids, (the youngest is three months) and all of her salon clients are going without hot water.

The house has a boiler, radiant heat, and the hot tap comes off of boiler as well. She's short on cash due to present situation. I am doing free labor.

I can sweat pipe. I've never worked on a oil furnace system.

Supposedly they had problem a year ago. Had an acid flush a year ago and those guys recommended putting in an electric hot water heater. The acid flush never really corrected the problem and now there is no hot water.

The husband bought an electric hot water heater dropped it off a couple weeks ago and it is sitting in the box in the basement. There is no secondary hot water exchange tank.

I figured I could bypass the mains into the electric hot water heater and create a diverter for the hot to the faucets. House has kitchen faucet, one bathroom faucet, shower and a salon sink faucet.

I don't know if there is a recirculating pump. I'll find out when i look at it.

 

[Diehard]

Long story short... I was asked to wire a hot water heater by a woman who is newly separated. Her husband is enjoying hot showers with his new girlfriend while this woman, her three kids, (the youngest is three months) and all of her salon clients are going without hot water.

The house has a boiler, radiant heat, and the hot tap comes off of boiler as well. She's short on cash due to present situation. I am doing free labor.

I can sweat pipe. I've never worked on a oil furnace system.

Supposedly they had problem a year ago. Had an acid flush a year ago and those guys recommended putting in an electric hot water heater. The acid flush never really corrected the problem and now there is no hot water.

The husband bought an electric hot water heater dropped it off a couple weeks ago and it is sitting in the box in the basement. There is no secondary hot water exchange tank.

I figured I could bypass the mains into the electric hot water heater and create a diverter for the hot to the faucets. House has kitchen faucet, one bathroom faucet, shower and a salon sink faucet.

I don't know if there is a recirculating pump. I'll find out when i look at it.

I doubt there would be a circulating pump on the domestic HW line unless there is a very long run of HW piping. But do check!

The main thing would be to intercept the hot water(HW) line coming from the boiler, before it branches off to anything. You cut in a TEE in that line to allow you to connect the HW line from the new electric water heater. But you must put in a shut off valve between the existing boiler and the TEE. This will allow you to isolate the non functioning boiler system from the new HW heater. Tag it "KEEP CLOSED".
I would suggest you also put a valve between the new electric water heater and the TEE, so as to allow isolation for whatever reason in the future.

As far as cold water to the new electric water heater, just get the nearest or easiest source and put an isolation valve in it.

The existing cold water line to the boiler, that is strictly for the domestic HW use, may be shut off but be sure it's the shut off for the domestic water side only as the boiler would have a CW branch feeding the boilers heating water side also, which must stay operational for heating purposes.

You may want to snap some pictures of the piping around the boiler to assist any further discussions.

It would be good if one or more of the professionals would chime in with their opinion and expertise.