Building Large Cylindrical Tanks for Solar Heat Storage

Alan Rushforth of Rushforth Solar provides detailed information on building large cylindrical water tanks for storing heat. These tanks are commonly used to store heat generated by an array of solar collectors in space and water heating applications.

One of Alan's tanks

The tanks that Alan makes typically range from a thousand gallons up 4000+ gallons, but the design could certainly be used for smaller tanks that would be typical of residential solar applications.

This design is very structurally efficient, light weight, and material efficient.

The tanks consist of aluminum  sheet wrapped into a cylinder, which is then lined with rigid foam board insulation.  

The outer aluminum sheet wall with layers of insulation inside.

An EPDM liner is then installed to contain the water.

The EPDM tank liner being installed

Alan also includes some very helpful material on building heat exchangers for these large tanks.

Thanks very much to Alan for providing this material!

Stainless steel pipe coil heat exchanger.

Alan's full description on building these tanks ...

Gary