I built a Solar Collector this week , I used 1 inch styrofoam insulation sheets and doubled it inside the box I made.

I used the black plastic style tubing and coiled 170 ft of the tubing inside the box.

I painted everything inside the box with a gloss black paint.

I sealed the box with dap sealant.

then covered the box with a glass surface.

I went inside for a hour or so , when I went back outside the insulation was melted , the tubing was melted and all my work was ruined , other than the box.

I had no idea that the temperature would get that hot as I have only read that solar collectors of this type would only get to apx 145 F or so.

anyway next week I plan to use copper tubing or black plumbing pipe and regular fibreglass insulation.

and I might drill a few holes to allow some of the heat to escape to prevent any moisture that might form inside due to condensation from boiling and blowing the glass off of it.

from the looks of it I could probably boil water with this one box and if I had a few of them I could use steam to turn a generator to power my house.

LOL

I built a copper heat exchanger by soldering apx 70 ft of 1/2 inch copper tubing together using 1/2 T's , that was alot of soldering and believe it or not the thing didnt leak !!!

I put 8 inch attic insulation in the box then attached the heat exchanger to the bottom of the box with pipe straps then painted the bare fiberglass insulation and copper tube heat exchanger a gloss black.

and yesterday I used the hot water to heat the house and heat the water in the hot water heater.

the house stayed at apx 80 degrees inside.
and after the sun went down the 50 gallon water heater supplied enought heat to continue heating the house for apx 1 hour longer.

the water heater I have has three inch rigid foam insulation so It holds heat better than a average water heater.

but I have disconected the 240 volt wires from it that used to power it.

and now I just use the 50 watt circulation pump that circulates the solar powered hot water from the collector outside to the heat exchanger inside and then to the water heater and back to the solar collector outside etc...etc...

it works well and Im thinking of building another collector like the first one outside for the upcomming colder weather.

the collector did not hold any heat after the sun went down
so I took the storm door sized glass off of it , and took the heat exchanger out of it , and laid 8 16"x16" walkway bricks inside the box.

the walkway bricks are apx 2" thick and made of concrete.
I spaced them apx 2" apart inside the box to alow room for the pipe straps that I use to secure the copper heat exchanger to the bottom of the box.

I laid them directly on top of the bare 8" insulation and then painted them with the gloss black paint.

I secured the copper heat exchanger to the bottom again
and touched up any bare metal parts of the tubing with the black paint.

and put the glass back on the top , angled it a little bit more towards the sun and hopefully tomorrow I will have a few more hours of heat after the sun goes down.

also when the sun goes behind a cloud and the collector does not get full sun the bricks should supply heat to the heat exchanger inside.

I have a water temperature guage that I will install on the outlet pipe to allow me to determine the amount of energy that would be required to bring the water temperature to boiling temperature.

this way I will have more insight as to the lenght of the solar concentrator that I want to build next to bring the water to boiling temperature and to use in a reaction turbine that I already have to turn a generator.

http://video.google.com.au/videosearch?q=%22mirror+dish%22&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=TiL6SoTpL8XykAWh4Zm0Cw&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCQQqwQwAw#