Sun Tunnels: Are They Right For Your Home?

What are Solar Tunnels? And are they best for you? Solar Tunnels are an exceptional option to carry a lot of pure gentle right into a room and are way more inexpensive than skylights. I am sharing our private expertise with VELUX Solar Tunnels and answering frequent questions on them!

An enormous thanks to VELUX for partnering with us on this venture. As at all times, all opinions are 100% my very own. I do not associate with corporations or share merchandise that I do not genuinely suggest and love.

We just lately completed giving our staircase and upstairs hallway a whole makeover by putting in board and batten , putting in a stair runner , updating our stair railing and portray just about the whole lot. However by far essentially the most transformative a part of the renovation was the set up of 4 VELUX Solar Tunnels . It sounds dramatic, however they’ve fully remodeled the way in which the upstairs of our home seems. Extra importantly, including Solar Tunnels has fully modified the way in which we FEEL concerning the second flooring of our residence. Earlier than I share why we selected to have VELUX Solar Tunnels put in and present you what an enormous distinction they’ve made for us, let’s cowl a few of the fundamentals.

What are Solar Tunnels?

A Solar Tunnel (typically known as a tubular skylight) is a round channel that directs daylight out of your roof down a extremely reflective aluminum Tunnel and right into a room or area under. That implies that areas of your own home that do not in any other case have any pure gentle through home windows, and many others. can have gentle pouring into them!

What’s the distinction between a Solar Tunnel and a skylight?

Skylights

A skylight is sort of like a window that’s mounted in your roof. A skylight permits a lot of pure gentle AND permits you to see blue sky. You even have choices to open and shut skylights in addition to add remote-controlled blinds to them. Relying on how you may have them put in, they will additionally add architectural curiosity to the ceiling of your own home. We had VELUX skylights put in in our previous residence they usually have been pure magic. I can not inform you how a lot we liked them they usually have been an enormous promoting level once we listed our previous home on the market. You’ll be able to see the VELUX skylights we had put in in our previous main bed room under.

Solar Tunnels

However, a Solar Tunnel makes use of an acrylic dome mounted to your roof to seize daylight, amplify it with reflective tubing, and ship it down by means of the tube and ceiling of your own home. They’ll match into smaller areas and maneuver round attic obstructions as a result of versatile Tunnels/ maneurvability of the fabric in a manner that conventional skylights can not. That makes Solar Tunnels way more versatile by way of the place they are often put in.

Solar Tunnels let in a great deal of pure gentle, however they’re very completely different than skylights. You can’t see blue sky by means of a Solar Tunnel. You can’t open/shut them or set up blinds in them. And so they actually do not add architectural curiosity to an area. However they’re an exceptional and cost-effective manner so as to add pure gentle to darkish, inside areas in your house.

And the pace of set up of them is AWESOME! A Solar Tunnel will be put in inside a day, making it one of many quickest and most cheap methods to remodel your own home with pure gentle. We had FOUR Solar Tunnels put in over the course of 1 1/2 days.

How a lot does it price to have a Solar Tunnel put in?

It relies upon rather a lot on the size of the reflective tubing you want and the precise sort of Solar Tunnel you select (low profile vs. flat glass, inflexible vs. versatile Solar Tunnel tubing). However I feel it is protected to say you can typically anticipate to pay between $650-$2,150 per put in Solar Tunnel. That is FAR LESS than the price of put in skylights particularly if you’d like VELUX skylights that open and shut, have blinds, and many others.  

VELUX provides a digital session service totally free . You’ll be able to meet with a daylight design guide by telephone or video convention to ask questions on skylights and focus on choices on your residence. You can too simply find an installer if you’re pondering Solar Tunnels are a great choice for you!

Do Solar Tunnels leak?

Once I first shared on Instagramthat we deliberate to have Solar Tunnels put in, so many individuals expressed considerations about leaking! I feel previous skylights have a foul rap for leaking that also lingers in folks’s minds. We aren’t involved about leakage in any respect.

First, there may be much less of a threat of leaking with Solar Tunnels than skylights as a result of their small, comparatively flat dome permits water to empty round them. However even once we had skylights put in in our final residence, we didn’t fear about leaks as a result of VELUX makes the “No Leak Skylights” that function  three layers of water safety . I will even say that correct set up is essential. Even with one of the best VELUX merchandise, incorrect set up and sub-par contractors could cause leaks and different points.

When VELUX Solar Tunnels are put in appropriately, they’ve a weather-tight set up. Throughout set up, the installer makes use of extremely adhesive mastic to safe the flashing piece to the roof deck. The flashing piece can be screwed into place, and the screws and high portion of the flashing are lined with sealant. All-weather underlayment is put in excessive of the flashing to make sure correct drainage of rainwater. Lastly, the installer will reinstall the roofing materials over the flashing and across the Solar Tunnel. Use a VELUX-certified installer to make sure your Solar Tunnel is correctly put in.

We had our Solar Tunnels (and the skylights in our previous residence) put in by VELUX Signature Skylight Specialist Pure House Lite . In case you are in North Carolina, I can not extra extremely suggest them. They’re a dream to work with and we 100% belief their experience and set up.

Why we selected VELUX Solar Tunnels for our present residence.

I clarify rather a lot within the video under and present movies of how absurdly darkish our hallway was earlier than we began our renovation–I like to recommend you watch it to get the complete image.

Given how a lot we liked the VELUX skylights in our previous residence, we naturally needed them once more in our present residence ! So once I first reached out to VELUX about our upstairs venture, I requested about skylights. Sadly, they simply weren’t potential with the depth of the attic area now we have right here.

However I discovered that Solar Tunnels would nearly actually work for the places we would have liked them. So we arrange an appointment for Pure House Lite to return do a website go to. They seemed across the attic and our residence and decided that YES, we might set up 2 14-inch Solar Tunnels in our hallway and 10-inch Solar Tunnels in our ladies’ loos. I couldn’t include my pleasure.

We did have some HOA limitations to work round. Our HOA rejected our preliminary plan that proposed 2 flat glass Solar Tunnels on our entrance roofline. However Pure House Lite was nice and discovered a option to place all 4 Solar Tunnels on our rear roofline. Thankfully, our HOA permitted the revised plan we submitted!

What our upstairs areas seemed like earlier than our VELUX Solar Tunnels have been put in.

We bought this residence nearly 2 years in the past. And we practically did not make a suggestion on it due to how darkish and cave-like a lot of the second flooring was. The upstairs hallway, which is giant, did not have a single window or pure gentle supply. The one manner the hallway obtained any pure gentle was to have the doorways to the upstairs rooms open. However the truth is, the doorways to our upstairs rooms are fairly often closed. With the doorways closed, you might not see to stroll down the hallway and not using a gentle on (you possibly can see what I imply within the video I shared earlier on this submit).

You’ll be able to see under how darkish the hallway was EVEN WITH the doorways to the upstairs rooms open. Loopy.

Avery’s toilet and Attley’s toilet additionally fully lacked any direct sources of pure gentle. That is how they seemed with none lights on. Bleh.

Hopefully you possibly can see why we needed so as to add some pure gentle to our upstairs hallway and loos!

How a lot gentle do Solar Tunnels actually let it?

As I discussed above, we had all 4 VELUX Solar Tunnels put in over the course of 1 1/2 days. It was painless to reside by means of. Many of the first day the installers from Pure House Lite spent outdoors on the roof and within the attic. The second day is once they truly minimize by means of the ceiling and completed the whole lot. That is what it seemed like after that they had minimize by means of the roof and ceiling however earlier than they put in the reflective Tunnel. A lot pure gentle spilled by means of! This picture is straight out of my telephone and isn’t edited.

However y’all… LOOK AT HOW MUCH BRIGHTER EVERYTHING GOT ONCE THE REFLECTIVE TUBES WERE ATTACHED. I used to be legitimately shocked by the quantity of sunshine flooding into our hallway. SHOCKED. This picture can be straight out of my telephone and isn’t edited in any respect.

Earlier than and after comparisons

Okay, I do know you wish to see how our upstairs hallway and loos look with our VELUX Solar Tunnels put in, so right here you go! You’ll be able to watch the transformations within the video under, however I additionally included a lot of images for you 🙂

I’ve included side-by-side pictures of the hallway with the very same digicam settings so you will get a pure comparability. With the very same shutter pace and aperture settings, the one distinction in these images is the truth that Solar Tunnels have been put in.

You’ll be able to see that with the identical digicam settings the images are manner OVER EXPOSED after the Solar Tunnels have been put in. The distinction is unbelievable, is not it?!

And listed here are some images of the hallway with publicity, and many others. adjusted to accommodate all of the pure gentle that now floods into our hallway!

I shot the earlier than and after images of Avery’s toilet and Attley’s toilet with my telephone, which auto-adjusts the whole lot. So it is not a “managed comparability” just like the images of the hallway above. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless fairly simple to see how a lot brighter their loos are with the Solar Tunnels put in.

We have had them put in for practically a month now and I nonetheless assume they’ve left the lights of their loos on once I stroll previous them, lol. The actual fact is, we by no means even flip the lights of their loos on in the course of the day anymore. The ten-inch Solar Tunnels put in of their loos present greater than sufficient gentle in the course of the day!

Shocking perks of VELUX Solar Tunnels

We have been pleasantly stunned by a few issues with our VELUX Solar Tunnels. To start with, you possibly can add a photo voltaic evening gentle to every Solar Tunnel which is so cool (and makes the Solar Tunnel eligible for a “Photo voltaic Electrical Property” Federal tax credit score). The VELUX Photo voltaic Night time Gentle captures obtainable daylight to cost its hid battery, which then powers the evening gentle’s LED bulbs after darkish. And it matches inside your Solar Tunnel so you possibly can’t even see it. Now we have one in every of our Solar Tunnels they usually present an ideal comfortable glow at evening so you possibly can see with out having to activate a vivid gentle.

The diffusers you possibly can select on your Solar Tunnels additionally provide you with some management over the looks of your Solar Tunnels the place they meet your ceiling and the temperature of the sunshine that comes into your area. The daylight that the Solar Tunnels seize and mirror is kind of cool (blueish). I believed the sunshine felt a bit too cool for our residence, so we added a impartial gentle diffuser to heat up the temperature of the sunshine a bit. You’ll be able to see a distinction within the picture under. I am nonetheless undecided about which I desire, particularly because the gentle adjustments fairly a bit all through the day because the angle of the solar shifts. It’s very a private choice, however it’s good to have choices!

Are Solar Tunnels best for you? Here is the underside line.

When you’ve got darkish inside areas that want pure gentle, it’s best to completely take into account Solar Tunnels. They’re extra budget-friendly than skylights and let in an incredible quantity of pure gentle and you’ll set up them practically anyplace due to their versatility. And the set up is way quicker than having skylights put in. We couldn’t be happier with our Solar Tunnels! They’ve fully modified the way in which we really feel concerning the second-story of our residence. It was once darkish and miserable and now it is so vivid and joyful!

In case you are excited about VELUX skylights and have the area and finances to have them put in, make sure to try this submit concerning the VELUX skylights we had put in in our final home! We liked them a lot (and nonetheless miss them).

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Questioning how I method remodeling rooms and areas in our residence? Take a look at Designer in a Binder® .

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