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I've always been fascinated with natural lighting in homes. Whether it's "sun tubes' like this site...

http://www.solatube.com/residential/wha ... /index.php

Or mirrors that simply direct light underground (like they did on the mythbusters I just watched.)

I think it's a great idea. Well, I think it's a great idea to light underground things. I mean who needs a light on the second story of a house when it's the middle of the day?

Does anybody have any ideas? Or has anyone ever seen natural lighting used in creative ways?

I personally think it would be awesome to have a basement lit by the sun.

I have seen youTube videos of a simple version of the solar tubes you mention. I saw where one guy did it with coke bottles filled with water stuck in his garage roof. It worked well, but apparently he had to remove it because neighbors complained about how it looked.

Here I found an example.

Here's the one I saw recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zMAWztZ6TI
Pretty clever, mostly scavenged materials and good anywhere that you don't get freezing weather.

Hm, those things are really cool!

I wonder if you could throw some antifreeze in the water so it could be used in colder climates? Or use a different liquid all together? You could use glycerin? Non-toxic antifreeze, and it's clear. I mean sure they wouldn't work if they were covered in snow... but still. Could be a future upgrade for the banana building maybe?

Yea, the freezing thing would definitely be a concern. I do like the idea, though. It is so simple it has to work.

corrado33 wrote:Hm, those things are really cool!

I wonder if you could throw some antifreeze in the water so it could be used in colder climates? Or use a different liquid all together? You could use glycerin? Non-toxic antifreeze, and it's clear. I mean sure they wouldn't work if they were covered in snow... but still. Could be a future upgrade for the banana building maybe?

You'd want something that doesn't conduct heat the way water does - maybe nitrogen instead of water, though that would cut down on the light transfer quite a bit. Wouldn't help in a cold place to add a heat leak to the roof!

What about plain old air? A dead airspace like in a capped bottle would have quite good r-value.

I don't know how well the air would reflect the light around. Hence why they use water in the ones posted above.

I think the water is to refract the incoming light, but I doubt in the case of the example shown that there would be much extra light gained since the depth of the "tube" is quite short anyways. It would be interesting to see a comparison in the same shed.