Not to be critical, but your design has 1 huge flaw - most of the piping is not exposed to the sun's rays! You would gain ALOT more efficiency by going larger with your box and coiling the pipe up in it so every coil has sun exposure. http://rimstar.org/renewnrg/solar_pool_heater_diy_fp.htm Lot's o...

Finished project : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBqsrpBSua0

Where's the pictures? Im waiting till ive spliced it into the house hot water supply pipe then im going to take a video of the whole thing . Ill post the URL here. I tested the Collector again at 10:30 a.m. this morning under mostly cloudy skies , 80 f. outside .... and the Box as well as the exiti...

I see. Well., live and learn i guess. Anyway, got the Collector Box completed and filled it with cold well water at 58 f. Put the Collector Box on a 30 degree angle ... its a mostly sunny day , 90 f. outside, left it for 5 hours . Took temp of Box inside : 160 f. Took temp. of exiting water : 158 f....

Aaron, I talked to a guy that has the same project as myself installed and operating...using a big roll of Pex-B ... and he said he painted his Pex flat black and its held up very well over time...so, I just painted mine in hopes it will offer some UV protection. I went with Low E glass because I re...

Update. Did a preliminary check of the Solar Collector effectiveness by simply filling the Pex Tubing Coil while the entire Collector Box was just sitting on my driveway ; filled the Pex using Well water at 60 f. and after 5 hours on a partly cloudy day of 92 f. outside....the water was at 122 f. I ...

If you add the pump, you may want to consider adding a solar panel to generate the power for it. Since it's a 12v pump, you would need to use a converter to convert 120v AC to 12v DC, and that thing will suck up electricity whether the pump is drawing power or not. A solar panel will only generate ...

Hello to my neighbor Aaron ! I finally got around to starting this project . Upon further consideration, im not going to just splice into the hot water supply line off the water heater, but rather, first try thermosyphoning into the water heater from the Solar Collector ....as im told theres a risk ...

I live in Florida in a doublewide (alone) , and plan on never having to use the electric water heater again. Fortunately being alone, I dont use alot of hot water at any one time . Today, i built the 36x36" wooden box out of 2x12's and 1/2" plywood back for which a 300' roll of 3/4" P...