Living off Grid – Solar Tubes

Reader Contribution by Ed Essex
Published on January 9, 2013
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We have a lot of off grid design features in our house. One of those is solar tubes. Since they seem to generate so much interest with visitors I thought I would share what I know about them after using six of them for three years.

Someone mentioned solar tubes to me a few years ago. I had “sort of” heard about them but never really looked in to what they were. Solar tubes are a cylindrical version of a skylight. They have a plastic dome on top which sits on the roof of your home. The dome top is attached to a round polished tube which extends through your attic and ends at your ceiling. At the ceiling end you will find a diffuser or round lens which diffuses the light. Put a different way, light starts at the exposed dome above the roof and travels through the polished cylinder and ends at the diffuser. I have borrowed a picture from Google (shown below right) to illustrate.


To start my research I called a salesman in a local glass company and asked about them. He thought they were a great product but he told me they worked so well that in one home they had to remove the solar tubes they had installed because they let too much light in. Apparently the owners were unhappy because the tubes let too much light in from vehicle headlights at night and they couldn’t sleep.
Let me put that and your main question to rest right here. Solar tubes work and work well and no, I’m pretty sure they won’t let so much light in at night that you won’t be able to sleep. I have no idea where he came up with that story but I did mention he was a salesman right?

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