We have used them on multiple projects. They are well received by our customers and do bring in quite a bit of natural light.

Installation is always critical but these systems are quite well engineered and relatively fool proof if you can follow instructions.

We put one in our bathroom downstairs. Had it for maybe 4 or 5 years now. Works great, it's mounted inside the shower which is white tile, so nice sunny environment there.

It lites up the whole bathroom well, even at dawn and dusk, which kinda surprised me. Saves a lotta electricity as the florescent lites took up about 80 watts and they were on/off numerous times per day. We bought the one with the light fixture in it for night use, I installed a 13 watt florescent in it and it is plenty of light for the bathroom at night.

I guess you get the idea, I'm very happy with it!
We have 2 more bathrooms upstairs, our master which has windows, and a guest that does not, even thou this bathroom does have an outside wall, I'm still leaning towards another Sola Tube for this bathroom, as the bathroom is just not used enough for the expense of adding a window, and the Sola tube will lite it up real good.

HTH's!

Gary

Hi Gary-
Hope I didn't already post back to you elsewhere- I've gotten a little confused between two forums. Thanks much for your help! How long was the run to get the tube downstairs? Was it a straight run, or did it have elbows? I guess you felt that solatube was the best brand? Did you do the work yourselves? Questions, questions...

It was a fairly short run, as the bathroom juts into the garage and the garage roof is on the 1st floor of our house alto it is a pitched room--anyway I would guess about 8ft of tubing above the actual reflector in the bathroom. I had thought about extending it all the way up to the 2nd rooftop, but then I would have had to hide it, and as I mentioned even thou the upper roof blocks the Western Sun it still lights the bathroom quite well, until dusk----at dusk you would not want to try to put on your makeup or a "Precison shave" (Depending upon your gender), however without using additional lighting (LOL).

We had Solatube install it, they have specials, ever so often on discounted installations.

I can't speak to the competition but the research I did and the features led me to purchase the SolaTube.

Best of luck with your decision!

Gary

Thanks for your help and good wishes, Gary! It's just the daylight that I miss, but yeah, I can see having to add a light at dusk. I think for a 2 story run, I need a company rep to lay eyes on it, otherwise the upstairs guest room will have to do. So many considerations. I'm grateful that people take the time to reply.

We have the fancy lens, I forget what they call it, but the bathroom is pretty "Cheerie" most of the day.

If it helps, I can take pictures.

Gary

what brand of tubular skylights is good?

Velux is a very good manufacturer on their skylights so I would trust that their system is good on that as well.

Can't say that I have installed a Solatube brand, however the Velux product is very good. As WoW mentioned, Velux is pretty much top-dog when it comes to skylights and such.

Thank you for the info about Velux;
My other question is what is better: acrylic or polycarbonate dome (lens)?
Polycarbonate seems to be more expensive (better???). but it is less scratch resistant than acrylic and can get yellow over time; also has poorer clarity than acrylic.
At least that's what it says when I compare the quality of those materials on the website.
How they perform in real life in the tubular skylights?

Thanks