that's awesome Joe! I'm glad someones trying my idea, I haven't had the time just yet...

For the bulkhead fittings, what about some plain old copper tubing? you could solder on fittings on the inside and outside.

not a bad idea but I kinda wanted something I could put silicone on and tighten down to seal it. I think I might go to home depot tomorrow and look around to see what I can rig up.

there are brass fittings with threads on both ends, used to attach bath tub spouts. They come in different lengths.

cool I will check those out, I am going to put the tank on hold right now, I just started working on the collector, I will resume this when I get it done.

I like your idea. Have you gotten it hot yet? Question number two, how big of a chest freezer are you using? I need 20 square feet or about 150 gal. I am wondering if yours is that large. I sure don't like the prices on solar thermal storage tanks.

Another question, How well does the PEX tubing work as a heat exchanger? Copper is probably better but pretty expensive. Anyhow I love your idea. Hope you don't mind if I steal it for my home.

PEX doesn't work all that great, so you need a long length of it. Gary on builditsolar.cm has some info on PEX and other cheaper plastic tubing as heat exchangers. Basically, you just need a lot and it takes up a lot of room. If you have the room, it'll work.

I picked up some in-floor heating tubing awhile back that I'm going to try on a project. Not the cheapest stuff out there either but it's better than copper and can take the heat. Good heat exchange properties too, since it's designed to do just that.

Is your in-floor heating tubing PEX? I'm pretty sure that PEX is the most used un-floor heating tubing,

-AC_Hacker

Years back in my early solar heating experiments I used an old chest freezer for my heated water storage. I put a water bed bag inside to hold the water. My water temp was an average of 160, the bag never leaked.

mike

No structural problems?

-AC_Hacker