Excellent! Thanks for the info! Try the following for a hot water system, if you can do so in your situation. It includes building instructions.
The $1000 Solar Water Heating System
http://www.builditsolar.com/Experimental/PEXColDHW/Overview.htm
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) we have a mostly 80 to 100 foot tree canopy. If he cuts any more around our house the summers are too hot, I can’t handle heat and usually there are weeks above 100 here. Although the last couple of summers have been cooler. And right now it’s 45, we’ve only had a few days without the wood stove on.
He does have 2 (two!) on demand propane hot water heaters, and a fair amount of propane stored. What I’d like is one of those hot water heaters that can use any bits of fuel and once heated, can have fuel added to run continuously. In fact, hub got 3 hot water tanks (for free, from an ad in the paper) to experiment with.
Plus there are ways to make one using the heat from the wood stove, fine except for summer. He just needs to buckle down and do it! A solar one would work for one of our outbuildings though.
I’d also love a solar food drier, once the garden gets going (hopefully this year!). We have clay/stone dirt, have to “make” and collect dirt to grow anything, and he still needs to fell some more trees. Even if I grow nothing but a few kinds of greens, I’ll be happy.