" ( oh if there werent 2 females in the house )"
Just run alot more pipe in the sun and use a larger storage system
Often nothing is wrong with discarded hot water tanks other than sediment (flushes out) and the burner or element. I bleach them well with alot of clorox to purify them. I pay $3-$6 for scrap tanks at the salvage yard. I also get alot of good pipe fittings cheap this way too! Plastic, copper, brass, lots of good stuff
Place one or more tanks anywhere before your main tank. The more the better, but at least one works real good. Well water and even city water is cold comming out of the ground, so pipe that into a tank above ground to stand, it will warm in the air and take less energy to heat right there, big savings! Take off the insulation from this first tank/s, you want to loose the cold and gain the heat here.
That one (or more) is at the water source. Run from that one into water lines to the roof or up the south wall (sun side if you want vertical pipes) on the roof basically do anything you want with the pipe as long as it's in the sun. Several long runs connected at both ends with a manifold is good. Go as long as you want or have room for. Take that hot water end and run it down to more tanks, as many as you want, for storage. Keep these well insulated, you want to keep the heat here.
Connect those in series and then into your main tank. The more tanks you have for storage the longer at night you'll have hot water without paying for it. If winter freezing is a problem, then just run all lines verticaly, put a valve at the lowest point to drain the system on each end. When you plumb in the tanks put a couple valves so you can shut off the water to the roof and open the lines to the normal tank for winter. Spring or summer comes just shut off the line to main tank and open roof lines again (after shutting off the drain valves).
That black plastic utility pipe is cheap, depending on size 1/2" or 3/4" it was $15 for 100 foot last time I bought some. Think that was at Lowes, been awhile. It works well as is just tossed on the gound or roof, as long as it's in the sun. The fittings for it are cheap and easy. Plastic barbed fittings, just push them in and screw on a hose clamp. Very easy but check for leaks anyway, I seldom having any leaks but sometimes I do get a drip and I have to retighten the clamp, but not often. Once installed I never have any problems.
Depending what you want to do for moving water, you can use a slow low power pump to keep it flowing all the time, or just use water durring the day, taking out the hot water from yesterday and flowing in todays hot water. Washing clothes durring the hottest part of the day with hot water helps keep the storage tanks hot plus use less of what is stored at night. Wash the car with hot water also helps and cleans the car better than cold water too. It's free so why not? Watering the lawn (if you do that) would move the water also, but that should be done early morning or evening when the sun is not so hot, so that's probably not a good idea for hot water unless you do it about noon.
This works very well when the sun is hot, it even helps at night if your in a pretty hot area. 90F ambient air is much better than 50F wells