For years I had been talking about putting a skylight in the ceiling for the dining room. Since the bathroom remodel was taking my "window" away I decided to put a skylight in the bathroom ceiling. Or more accurately - a sun tube.
A week ago Thursday I completed the installation of a sun tube in my new bathroom.
While my uncles were here and we worked on the bathroom I figured out where I wanted my sun tube. I cut a hole in the bathroom ceiling and placed the bottom of the sun tube in the ceiling.
Now to complete the sun tube I had to cut through the house roof. We had a very rainy June but come July it was starting to dry out and warm up.
The bathroom is located in the old original house and that meant the roof was 1" by 10" boards and not plywood. I cut part of one board and then pounded a long nail through the felt up through the roof. Or so I thought. I couldn't find the nail when I went on top of the roof. I then pounded a long sharp rod through the roof. This I found when I went up to the roof.
After removing the shingles around the rod I decided to not cut the roof from above and instead cut from below even though it was the harder thing to do due to the limited room in the attic. It was a good thing I did as I discovered the roof I started to cut through was not the real roof. When the bedroom addition was added to the house the addition's roof covered the original roof where it tied into the original house.
I had to enlarge the hole in the original roof to reach the real roof. In addition to the roof boards, the original roof still had the wooden shingles nailed to it and they were a pain to cut through.
Below are photos of the two roofs.
Because the two roofs are at different slopes the spot where the rod went through the second roof was not where the hole ended up being cut.
The sun tube consists of three main pieces: an upper elbow, a lower elbow and a metal piece to connect the two. The sun tube length was just long enough and I didn't have to buy an extension piece.
Here are photos of the finished work.
I am very happy I installed the sun tube. The inside of the metal tube and elbows are very shiny and direct the light down the tube. The sun tube puts out over 100 watts of light - more than my ceiling light. The sun tube light is plenty bright even on cloudy days and when the sun is not overhead. For quite a few days when Tammy or I walked by the bathroom we thought we had left the bathroom light on.
I like my sun tube so much I had my brother in North Dakota buy me three more sun tubes. Menards had these type of 10 inch sun tubes on sale for only $99 instead of the $179 I paid for the 10 inch bathroom sun tube.
5 comments:
I think it is a fun way to save with your electric bill. Besides, the skylight looks good in your bathroom. You probably don’t need extra bulb since the skylight lightens up the space with a natural glow! It is the perfect lighting fixture
Wow, that’s really bright! :) I think going for a circular skylight is a great decision, since the light really focuses on the metal tube. Skylights can be tricky mainly because a huge part of its success lies on its location. For example, placing it on an area that is not exposed to sunlight defeats its purpose.
I agree with Willie. We all know that the bills get higher and higher, so it’s only right to do what we can to make our homes energy efficient. And, installing that skylight is one way to do it! Skylights are usually considered as decorative pieces, but when used effectively (like what you did), it can also act as an energy-saving home component.
Wow! Now your house is one of the few that can be considered environmentally-friendly. The advocacy of getting light straight from the sun has been really popular. Other countries are following these steps as well. In the Philippines, they are using plastic bottles to make lighting fixtures just like that.
It’s cute the way it seems like it’s just a normal household light. :) Anyway, even with its size, it can provide you good lighting, at least for this space. Why, it has an infinite source! And I think this type of skylight is perfect for people who are very particular with security. Nice! :)
Post a Comment