btolle, funny you should mention the outdoor structure for the water heater. That was my backup plan until I noticed how much space I have in the eaves. My kids (next door) have solar panels, and their very large storge/booster tank is in a lean-to at the back of their house.
Snowridge. you're not far off the mark. We already have solar panels to heat our pool at our present house, and were all prepared to install solar domestic water heating as well, at the new house. But, you're also correct that the panels need to face South, and we're going to have limited roof area facing South -- basically a porch roof. It's more important to me to use that for pool heating, because a pool heater is REALLY expensive compared to domestic water heating. And, yes, we need to heat the pool water in the Fall and Spring. My better half won't get in the water unless it's around 87 degrees. We don't use the pool at all in the deep Winter months when the pool water gets down below 70... The main roof of the house has an East/West orientation, with the back of the house, the West side, being shaded by a hammock of old growth live oak trees. We chose that location because the trees will frame the house like a picture, but there will be little sun on that roof. We don't want the solar panels on the front roof because they're not real pretty, and they're not as effective facing East, anyway.
I though about building a frame and sitting the solar panels on the ground facing South, and landscaping the back of them, but the trouble and expense soon straightened me out -- there comes a time in every clever idea when one has to say, "Enough is enough -- the cost of this can never be justified over a simple gas, tank-style water heater."
