Description

You may have seen these bottles that pierce the ceiling to bring light, especially in slums, without spending a fortune on window?

Vous avez peut-être déjà vu ces bouteilles qui percent le plafond pour apporter de la lumière, notamment dans les favelas, sans dépenser une fortune en fenêtre?

Well, the tubular daylighting devices, it’s a bit the same principle, more elaborate and with a cost of course.

A bright, high performance solution

A windowless room is very unpleasant to live and highly energy-consuming, since there is no natural light, it is necessary to turn on artificial lights constantly. A solution for these rooms are the conduits of natural light.

The tubular daylighting devices have 3 zones :

• The collecting zone: it is a dome on the roof that captures natural light 360° (unlike a flat window), redirects it through prisms, suppresses the overload of the midday sun, produces a uniform lighting throughout all the day and filters the infrared light (no heating).
• The transmission zone: this is a reflective light conduit that provides a very good color rendition, which can be bent from 0 ° to 90 °, which leads perfectly the light up to a 9 meter tube.
• The diffusion zone : these are high-performance lenses that filter  harmful UV (fabrics or panels do not fade), and are designed for excellent visual comfort.

The tubular daylighting devices are obviously perfectly tight.

Note: prefer rigid tubes than flexible tubes, which are less efficient.

You can add intensity regulators to meter the desired light, which can be nice in the bedrooms, for example.

Tubular daylighting devices can be installed on different roofs : shingles, zinc, slate, vegetated, tile or slate. It is possible to install them as well on the vertical walls.

Seen at

Name		Type of facility	Environment	Country	Swap?
	Essamaye	Hotels & guest houses	rural, mer, zone-chaude	Senegal	Yes
	L'écolodge des Chartrons	Hotels & guest houses	urbain	France	Yes

Provider

Solatube – between 400 et 700€HT (target price – august 2014)