Mother Earth News had an article on a family from Minnesota who made their own solar hot water system in an outbuilding and piped the water to their two story house to heat it with hydronic radiant floors. It showed how they built their own water storage tank using plywood, a pond liner to prevent leaks, a few fittings and some extruded polystyrene insulation. The tank held the solar heated water and they ran copper tubing into the lower part of their reservoir (using a fitting to go through the plywood and pond liner material) and made quite a few loops inside the tank and back out near the top of the tank). It was an inexpensive, but large capacity reservoir. They used 2x4's to frame the bottom and top of the tank to prevent the weight of the water from blowing the sides out. It might be worth considering if you are going to need a fairly substantial storage tank.
I belive that with ten solar water panels, you could likely heat your entire house with your only expense being to run a small circulation pump (after the system is set up). I'm sure your small PV setup could handle that small load.
Anyway, congratulations on the free SHW panel(s) and I'm looking forward to seeing how you use it/them.
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