While I was in Africa this summer I worked out how I could aim several mirrors at my old water heater. I had already stripped off half the casing and foam insulation on the water and heater and painted it black knowing that I wanted to acheive some sort of solar water heating but had never really worked out how to position the mirrors to make it really hot!
So, being a mathematician I set about working out the requisite formulas which would help me to space out the mirrors and determine at which angle I should keep them.

It turns out that instead of tracking the sun it’s actually quite simple to place the water heater perpendicular to the sun, and array the mirrors facing north. Aligning the mirrors in the center with the long edge running perpendicular to the sun means that at midday there will be an additional 8 sq. ft of solar power to heat the water that will eventually be contained in the heater.

In the first picture we can also see that there are 2 additional mirrors placed at 45 degrees in either direction to the middle mirrors. These mirrors are testing my hypothesis that at about 11 am (a little past quarter day) and 3pm there will be some additional sunlight that could be caught.
Once I get a little more funding for this project I’ll add a few more mirrors (4-10) more and also start work on a smaller concentrator for my home office.
Later I’ll connect up some actual water pipes, and circulate the hot water into the house for our new radiant heating system that I’m hoping to install this fall.
If you’d like to code for your own project please contact me.