Anyone know anything about/have experience with passive solar light tubes? - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

SwampYankee · #1 02-25-2009, 08:37 AM

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.

catmandoo62 · #2 02-25-2009, 08:45 AM

don't know about yours but the wal-mart here in town has skylight panels in the roof.during most days they don't even use the flo lights.

kerry · #3 02-25-2009, 09:01 AM

Friend had a long light tube in his house. I was unimpressed as it delivered little light, certainly not enough to turn off the electric light. Could be it was in a bad location.

KarTek · #4 02-25-2009, 09:10 AM

Swamp,

I have 3 of these in the house, in different rooms. During the day, they provide full light for each of the areas they serve. Granted they're in small rooms but even in a larger room, it's possible to reduce the supplementel lighting when the sun is out.

http://www.solatube.com/commercial/index.php

I haven't had any trouble with them and they've been installed for probably 16 years.

SwampYankee · #5 02-25-2009, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catmandoo62

don't know about yours but the wal-mart here in town has skylight panels in the roof.during most days they don't even use the flo lights.

We do have a skylighted area that does make a difference in one section of the warehouse but my concern with adding more is the greenhouse effect. It gets plenty warm in the summer already, I don't know if the tubes are any more or less warming.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry

Friend had a long light tube in his house. I was unimpressed as it delivered little light, certainly not enough to turn off the electric light. Could be it was in a bad location.

I think we'd be in good shape lightwise, 40K sq.ft. of flat roof in the sun all day (one of the reasons we checked into solar), the number of tubes needed to supplement or replace I suppose could be an issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KarTek

Swamp,

I have 3 of these in the house, in different rooms. During the day, they provide full light for each of the areas they serve. Granted they're in small rooms but even in a larger room, it's possible to reduce the supplementel lighting when the sun is out.

http://www.solatube.com/commercial/index.php

I haven't had any trouble with them and they've been installed for probably 16 years.

We've got (105) 4' fixtures in areas with the roof directly overhead, even if you only cut that in half it would help. Thanks for that link, I'll check out their commercial tubes and see if I can find a local contractor to get more info. It's a rolled Firestone rubber flat roof so I'd imagine they must have some sort of sleeve they could fuse right to the surface to keep them watertight.

LUVMBDiesels · #6 02-25-2009, 11:09 AM

The in laws have three of these tubes in their house. They provide a lot of light all day unlike a skylight. The trick is the optical bubble on the roof that catches light from dawn to dusk. One lights up a kitchen area so I would say that the home use ones are good for about 400 Sqft. I don't know if there are bigger ones for industrial use.

t walgamuth · #7 02-25-2009, 07:28 PM

I like it when I see buildings using natural lighting but I think it would be a long payback for a retrofit. If it were new construction the possiblities seem better.

MTI · #8 02-25-2009, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

I like it when I see buildings using natural lighting but I think it would be a long payback for a retrofit. If it were new construction the possiblities seem better.

Ditto . . . coupled with long standing advice about NOT putting new holes in a perfectly good roof.