Abstract: In this paper,three different types of evacuated glass tubes solar water heat collector are considered,namely natural circulation vertical tube,forced circulation vertical tube and forced circulation horizontal tube. The main objective is to compare and analyze the performance of the fore mentioned types in term of heat collection and efficiency. This experiment was conducted in Lanzhou city,Gansu province,China. The experiment was carried out within five consecutive days in March,where the average ambient temperature was ranged 8.9 to 12.0 ℃,solar radiation ranged 19.0 to 25.7 MJ/m~2,and a wind speed ranged 0.5 to 1.3 m/s. The experimental result revealed that,the effective heat collection and the average efficiency of the natural circulation vertical tube water heater is ranged 6.6-8.3 MJ and 10.8%-14.8% higher than that of the forced circulation vertical tube water heater. The effective heat collection and average effective heat collection efficiency of the forced circulation vertical tube water heater is ranged 0.9-3.4 MJ and1.6%-5.0% higher than that of the forced circulation horizontal tube water heater. Experimentally,the variation between the three types is mainly due to effective heat collecting area,heat exchange intensity inside the vacuum tube,and heat loss of the circulating pipe.