In the last few weeks a few things have been done.
1. Moved the water tank inside our garage
2. Installed second pump
3. Put all the fittings together and hooked up to the pex that runs underground from the house to the pole
4. Filled the tank up with water and circulated it
5. I've also ironed out most of the tracking issues. The Heliotrack system was well worth the money.
6. We re soldered the collector after it ruptured due to the heat melting the solder last time we were doing testing. That means the copper got to over 360F! This is also what prompted the second pump. We should have no issues moving water now.
Next up is putting the collector back on the dish and hooking everything up. Following that will be installing an Arduino to turn the pumps on or off depending on whether or not the collector is a certain temp.
So things are certainly progressing. Once the collector is back up, we will be able to start actually heating water. I'm so excited!