Mountain Solar tank

Well, necessity is the mother of invention or so they say. The other morning, Diane, Lee's sister, informed me the rug in the trailer bedroom was wet. I knew we water was leaking somewhere. Sure enough, the water heater tank had corroded and broken leaking water across the floor. Water heaters for trailers are very small only 6 gallons, but the price not so small $250. I had been planning to build a passive solar collector in front of the cabin using an old water heater tank. The water from our well is very cold around 45-50 degrees all year. It takes a lot of energy to heat the water up with a hot water heater. Using a tempering tank has been common up here for years, but adding the sun to heat the tank is not as common. The instructions had been to make an insulated box and cover it with insulated glass. Well, for the moment I didn't have any glass and I decided to see how much heat the tank would produce without all the extras. It is only going be working during the summer month on the trailer. So I built a sleigh like looking holder to tip it towards the angle of the sun the same as the latitude 41 degrees. I ran the cold pressurized water in and with the tank painted black the sun should do the heating. I will take some temperature measurements at the end of the day today to see how hot I can get it. There is 50 gallons of water so it will take a while to heat up. I do plan on putting some insulation behind the tank and maybe some reflective surface toward it. But no glass for now.
Lee complains my solar system looks like a Red Neck still. She doesn't think it looks too good. My offer to put some decorations on it did not soften the critical view of its beauty. I will rate its beauty on BTUs. If it heats the water to shower ability..it will be the most beautiful thing in the woods. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.