I was talking with a friend a few weeks ago about different things we were trying to do to cut down our energy use and costs and he said that his warehouse in R.I. recently installed solar tubes but he didn't know much about them. Only that they made for a significant cut in their lighting bill and there were some incentives that they took advantage of. He was going to try to get some info. for me but hasn't been able to yet.

We've toyed with solar panel installation but it's currently cost-prohibitive, this sounds like an intriguing alternative. While we do have machinery with 5hp electric motors (that we're gradually replacing with newer 90%+ efficient ones), fluorescent lighting is a significant factor in our electrical usage. Being that we're open 7am-5pm year round we'd be able to take advantage of a good amount of natural lighting during the course of the day. Some may remember we changed all of our older fluorescent light fixtures to new, energy efficient ones at a cost of $9000 and recouped those costs within 2 years so there is (I think) the potential for some sizeable savings.

I'm not even sure what they're called so that's a good place to start.

__________________

1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)