Light Tubes

Lighting into the interior of buildings can be substantially boosted by the inclusion of light tubes (often known as Sun Pipes after one of the leading UK suppliers). These reflect and intensify natural daylight through a highly polished mirror-finish aluminium tube to illuminate the space below. Light tubes typically have a clear polycarbonate top dome (which may be prismatically shaped to capture sunlight from varying angles during the day) to "gather" the light and at the lower end of the tube an opaque ceiling lens evenly diffuses the daylight into the space below.

Due to the high reflectivity of the actual tube, they can bend round corners with only limited loss of light transmission, and are particularly useful for reaching into enclosed areas such as store rooms or toilets. On a bright day, a typical light tube provides illumination equivalent to a 500W tungsten bulb; even on a dull day it can still equal a 150W bulb. Some light tubes are available with an integrated ventilation tube, to provide additional natural ventilation into the same enclosed area.