Sunday, August 06, 2006

Going solar: natural lighting

Natural lighting is, naturally, going to be of limited use during the heart of the Alaskan winter, but during the twilight hours of fall and spring should help quite a bit down at the office. There seem to be, other than yer average window, of which I have four, two basic types of non-skylight type solar light:

1) the hybrid solar light, which uses optical cables to transmit light from the building's exterior to its interior. I found one company offering it for commercial application. You have to call to find out the price, which makes me suspect it's out of my league. Here's some links to stories about it (PDFs, by the way).

2) the tubular skylight, essentially a skylight affixed to a highly reflective tube ended by a diffuser inside. Brands include the Sunpipe, Solatube, Sun-Tek Tube, etc.

Neither of these puppies are cheap. But then, neither are windows. I will undoubtedly go for option 2--eventually. As I noted below, I've already got the hole in the roof for a stovepipe which I won't need, so I might as well put a tubular skylight in there and brighten up that corner.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Deirdre,

So did you ever put in a solar light tube
? If so what were your results?

Our customers are almost always thrilled with the results after they've installed a solar skylight tube
.

We actually offer a much cheaper version of the same technology compared to brands you listed above if any one is interested.

Randy - Owner - http://tubesolar.net