I got behind on this thread and just caught up, so much activity in not much time.
I have some info regarding your fast-growing annuals methods. These include stuff like lettuce, tomatoes, basil, peppers that will be grown quickly and replaced. These plants will grow like mad in a hydro system if you give them what they want. The thing is, they don't all want the same conditions. Some want constant feeding, some like dry feet with intermittent flooding, some like to be misted with dew, some like to grow in stagnant filter sludge. You will have the best success if you put the right plants in the right type of system.
As for NFT, I don't like it. The main reason is that since they have nearly no media, they must be constantly irrigated with not much highly oxygenated water. Too little flow, the plants dry up; too much flow, the plants drown. Even the larger aeroflow-style systems suffer stagnation and oxygen deficiency problems. If you like to fiddle and tweak with flow rates, cleaning, drainage, and leaks they are the bees knees. But for me, they require too much maintenance compared to other grow setups.
With the strawberry towers, think seriously about something stackable. A big long tube is not too tough to set up, but changing out plants and teardown is not fun. Like Memphis said, they like to be fed with drippers. That clog every week or so. Too much water, and the tower will literally lean itself to the ground, or leak everywhere. The green, sewer drain PVC pipe is no good for this application, as it has no UV resistance. The white PVC pipe lasts much longer. The black corrugated HDPE drain line is the longest lasting, but is not rigid. At least with the PE pipe, you can cut it apart if it gets clogged and root bound. If you have a successful grow, your pipe WILL get root bound, it may or may not clog.
For tower containers, I hit the dollar stores for the square plastic pots. The window boxes work good for this, too. They all come with no drain holes in them. When I set one of these towers up, I nest all the containers together and drill a 1 inch hole through the middle bottoms all at once with a hole saw. That way, they all line up on a wide variety of rods or spears and are nearly impossible to clog. Setting up, my choice of center spear has become bamboo or broom handle. When not being used in a tower, the containers can be repurposed or nested and stashed under a table.
For your lettuce (and other plants that like bright, diffused light), all you need is some white shadecloth or greenhouse film. My choice for this has become whatever they stock at the grow store (it comes in many flavors; the custom stuff doesn't last much longer than the standard), or plain old white hefty garbage bags.
The shotgun heat exchanger you show is the same thing the commercial growers use to cool their grow lights. It will harvest a whole lot of BTU's out of hot air. Beware of air bubbles: make sure to rig it up so it burps itself. This could become a big part of your heat regulating strategy in the winter. I wouldn't worry too much about blowing air across your barrel battery: natural convection will do far more than you can do with fans without spending any electricity. The hx and fish tank loop is another story.
I am sure this project will be done the day after you die. Until then, it may be a work in progress forever. Then again, someone may inherit it after you are gone... this is the nature of worthwhile projects.
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