I have also made myself a sun collector to make hot water. It works very well and is cost-effective. It produces daily about 750 liter of water from 65 degrees Celsius (149 Fahrenheit)
I have my house equipped with a big amount of solar panels. There will be never a break even point, as I have big problems with the lifetime from the batteries.
The only good thing from the solar panels is that when there is no electricity from the grid (what happens quite offen) we still have electricity.