Geting into more hot water

It took quite a few hours to get the old hot water heater parts removed and our new hot water heater installed. The old water heater was too old and damaged to salvage anything other than the door from, so I had to buy basically everything as if I had nothing. The new heater had the gas line coming in at a different location, so I had to do some creative bending to get everything lined up and connected. All together the project cost $350.00 and took 3-4 hours (at a leisurely pace of course).

I bought a new bypass kit for the water heater thinking that I could bypass through the solar hot water panel, but I didn't realize that the bypass actually "bypasses" the hot water tank all together (duh) and won't work as a shutoff for the panel. The other slight problem is that the bypass adds 2 inches of depth to the back of the water tank, so there's not enough room to add a "T" fitting and valve assembly to tap into the tank and still close the interior door... So, I need to think about the best way to attach the panel to the tank in a way that lets me remove and re-install it with little hassle and no leaks.

We at least have hot running water in the RV again. Showering this morning in our own shower was very nice.

I have a few other projects going on that I need to finish up and then I can go back to work on the solar hot water panel. I'm not very excited about the design, but I feel like I need to finish it at least so I can test the final product before I start designing something else from scratch.