Heat Streamer - Solar Water Heater Kit

To say that this kit has the quality and finish of a third graders science project would be doing an injustice to third graders. I was more than blown away by the complete lack of quality and finish. THERE IS A REASON THEY ONLY SHOW ONE PICTURE in the advertisement. If you saw close up pictures you'd laugh. The frame is constructed of what looks to be 1/16" aluminum angle that can be purchased at your local hardware store. Into these cheap, poorly finished frame pieces it appears someone has taken a hand drill and drilled holes into the corners into which you attach bolts. It literally looks like someone drilled these holes freehand as none of them match up properly, they are all slightly different sizes.I expected some elaborate method of transferring the heat from the tubes to the water - Wrong again! The "heat sink" if you can call it that, is merely a single piece of 1/4" copper tubing that someone put a few bends in that are intended to be jammed into the glass tubes. There is NO method for retaining the glass tubes in the frame properly, they basically sit in the frame and are held in place by the copper tube. The best part of the "kit" is the glass tubes which are very efficient but even those can be purchased for a few dollars each/ Very poor quality, very, very poor workmanship on a very poorly designed system.I myself have made solar water panels from scratch, using the same glass tubes, that had a much better design. I was hoping that there was some better design that these guys had come up with but NO WAY. My system used a much better and efficient acetone filed copper heat sink that fit into a copper tubing system that contained the water for heat transfer. This system simply circulates water or fluid through a continuous copper tube. If you live in a climate where there are rain showers - beware - as if this open system is rained on after having been in the sun you are likely to get exploding and cracking tubes as there is no cap on the tube tops to prevent water from entering into the tubes. Thermal shock will cause the glass to crack.Just VERY disappointed in this item on SO many levels. Two stars for the good glass tubes which you can buy elsewhere for much cheaper. This entire system can be built for under $100 - and built 10X better than this system.

Not a magic solution..but neat. Filled tubes with DRY sand to increase efficiency. It will generate a good amount of hot water. Would be PERFECT for an off grid hunting cabin or a small pool heater. I drilled a hole the size of the 1/4" copper tubing into the screw cap on the intex pump. The intex filter pump draws cold water from the pool hose outlet through heater back to the pump/filter and back to the pool. This will only add maybe 1/3 deg per day...but that is 10 deg in a month.I could see using 3+ of these or a larger system to heat a pool with sunlight.

I have yet to install my solar heater because rain water would blow up and into the solar tubes if installed like it is photographed. The frame is to large for the tubes and dose not cover the tops enough. I will have to get more weather stripping to cover the top before installing. It was well packaged and easy to assemble.