For my solar hotwater system (which I should really start a thread on soon) I decided to go all copper/glass collectors just incase of high enough heat to melt pex. I intend to stagnate the collectors to protect my tank and limit it to 150 or so.
When I placed an all copper 1.5 sqft test collector in the back yard at about the same angle my big panels will be and I left it without water pumping the surface of the piping hit 218 F in 30 minutes. when I added water I got a bunch of steam coming out for the first few seconds. This was at about 65 degrees slope. I'm at the 49th parallel so that's a lot closer to a winter setting then summer and it still hit amazingly hot when water wasn't pumping.
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