Solar Heated Water, Here I Come!

About two weeks ago, I advertised on Freecycle that I wanted an old hot water heater tank, it didn't have to work, but it couldn't leak. Sure enough, I found one about a half hour's drive from our house. The problem was, HOW to get it here.

As luck would have it, my daughter's boyfriend is a young strong guy with a pick up truck. And I have my 19 year old son, who is also young and strong. With a little monetary incentive, I talked them both into helping me go get the water heater.

The water heater was stored in the basement of a 100 year old home. The home is beautiful! The owners tell me they got it at a steal, and each floor has about 1600sq feet of living space. WOW. I asked them how they heat their house, and they told me they use oil. Bet thats going to be expensive this year. I shared my knowledge of renting solar power and recommended they google it.

In the meantime, the two guys got ready to lift the water heater. The owner had guestimated that it weighs 200-300lbs. My son gave it a push to see how hard it was to budge, and it moved fairly easily. But we hadnt taken into account that it was sitting vertically, its tall, and its thin relative to its height, so of COURSE its going to move easily.

When they tried to turn it over and carry it, one at each end, THAT was a whole other story. And they had to carry it up some steps that were the outside access to the basement. Very challenging. They did manage to get it in the truck though!

On the way home, my son told me he thinks the inside tank is made of CAST IRON! On the one hand, thats why it was so incredibly heavy. The guys said they think it was 500-600lbs. So, it won't be easy to maneuver the tank around to work with it. But on the other hand, cast iron will hold heat MUCH better than steel and will help decrease the amount of heat lost at night.

Now I have to find some plans that will work best for us, and get busy on construction. I've found a couple of websites, one of which is excellent. But given that I'm not that saavy at construction terms, parts, etc, I'll definitely need help.
I've decided I'm going to draft my son into helping me build this thing. My husband just rolls his eyes and says its just one more piece of junk. But if we can get it built well, and built right, he will be glad for it later when propane gets even more expensive.