Celia brought this exciting movie to my attention and although it is focused on people in the Philippines and 3rd world countries there is no reason this technology could not be applied to tiny houses, sheds, and work spaces.
In a time where everyone is striving to ‘go green,’ even people in developed countries can use this innovative solution wherever applicable. Using recycled plastic soda bottles, water, and chlorine and inserting it through a roof you can make a simple 55 watt bulb to light up any area. Think how much electricity could be saved if this was applied across our own country!
I now live in the Philippines and have seen these plastic bottle “lights” in use. It is quite amazing how much illumination they provide.And they are free !
At first, I thought this was some sort of chemical light. However, it looks as it is a type of light refractor. The chlorine is only used to protect against growth of bacteria or algae in the water.
Unfortunately, it only produces light when it is sunny outside. Similar devices were used to light areas below deck in old tall ships.
Do a search on deck prism and you will find all kinds of variations of the marine skylights. Some might be a nice addition to a mobile tiny home but most are quite expensive. It may be possible to find something at the second hand store that could serve the same purpose (inverted glass bowls, etc) Sealing the base is the biggest issue.
For people living in single-layer tin roofed shacks that are used to leaks, sure, but for anyone under a modern roof that doesn’t want it to leak, punching a hole in your roof then trying to seal it is not an easy problem to solve (especially on roofs that see snow loads, ice dams, and large temperature differences, which the roofs in the video will not). The #1 place for roof leaks is around skylights and chimneys, and leaks can completely ruin a house within only a year or so. Don’t do this unless you know you can reliably seal it.
I can’t imagine anyone but those living in shanties like this would want to put soda bottles in their roofs anyway! Looks like a huge improvement over what they had. We used to have an old pole barn on our farm that had a corrugated tin roof and spaced every so often was a green, translucent, corrugated fiberglass panel; I suppose most places like this don’t have that available, but they let in a good amount of light.
I agree completely. This is great idea for the third world. But if you’ve got any kind of electric power, whether grid, solar or generator/battery, it would be far better to just use low-energy CFL or LED lights. The minuscule power savings is not worth punching holes in the roof of your house.
Tubular skylights are a better deal. They let in a lot of light, and don’t leak.
http://www.solatube.com/residential/what-is-daylighting/index.php
I was really fascinated by that product, but it made me wonder what the cost versus savings would be – would it be cheaper than lighting with electricity. After all, most people aren’t home during the day, and you can build in plenty of natural lighting (especially in a tiny or small) house with windows.
So I decided to do a little math. The Solatube website states that their 290DS model will illuminate 250-300 square feet. I had to stop by Lowe’s this afternoon, and the guy in the lighting department said that he had a room 19×22 that was illuminated by a ceiling fan fixture with 4-60 watt incandescent bulbs and that was plenty bright (keep in mind that’s also a room 40% larger than the max size for the Solatube). If you use CFL’s you cut that wattage by about 75%, for a total wattage of about 60 watts. Now, you probably wouldn’t need to have lights on during the daytime, but for the sake of argument, let’s say that you averaged 8 hours a day, every day with this 4 bulb fixture on for a total of 175.2 kilowatt hours used per year. Assuming also that your tiny house is in a rural setting, let’s use a figure of 12 cents per kilowatt hour, for a total cost of $21.02.
The kit for the Solatube 290DS can be found online for about $500, not including installation, and you’ll probably need additional tubing to get your light in the center of your room/tiny home. I’m not sure what installation would cost, but I would think $800 for the kit, additional tubing, and installation would be a conservative estimate.
Even factoring in a 4% electric rate increase every year, it would take about 23 and a half years to break even. Again, that’s assuming that you would have your lights on 8 hours a day every day during the daylight, which you most likely wouldn’t. I wouldn’t think it would be necessary or worth the expense, especially in a tiny house, all other things considered. Clever product though.
I never thought of those Solatube lights as a particularly energy-saving product– more of a sanity-saving one, if you have a room you spend a lot of time in during the day that has little to no sources for natural light.
My parents’ 1980’s house could use these in several rooms (with windows facing south-onto-a-porch and east). It feels like living in a cave much of the day in there. Makes me twitchy.
My mothers house is the same way, but it’s the kitchen. Even during the day you have to turn a light on to see what you’re doing in there.
I can see the appeal. If I had a work-from-home office that I spent all day in that got little outside light, I might be inclined to install one of these, even if it isn’t really cost efficient. I was just curious about how the cost factor worked out, and thought I’d share what I found. If someone were installing this simply because they thought it was saving money – it doesn’t seem that it would be. I realize many people would want it purely for the ambience of the natural light though.
I have seen people put wine bottles in the walls to allow light in. I’m not sure how it would work in the situation of the folks in this video, but I’m sure there are plenty of applications it would help with light.
Great lighting idea! I would like to use this concept for my design project!
I am a graduate student working on my thesis on modular dwellings under 100 square feet!
I could use the feedback if any tiny house enthusiasts would be willing to reply to my short survey at the link below You can also leave comments and ideas there.
http://aytm.com/r3fc97d
Thanks everyone for the help!
I used to live in Kenya and I sent this http://hackaday.com/2011/03/08/soda-bottle-skylights/ to one of my friends there who grew up in the slums but was able to get a college degree and is trying to help others. He has been installing these in the slums in Nairobi including in schools that didn’t have any lights in them. He is doing it from his own cost at $2 per light (which includes employing two young men who would otherwise be begging/robbing to eat). If you would be interested in helping him or seeing his pics give me an email at kitterman.ian@gmail.com
I am surprised how quickly readers put down an idea. It provides a simple solution to a problem using recycled materials and reducing energy use. While it may not seem to work in more developed nations, it could lead to other ideas of using recycled materials and reducing energy uses in our own country.
Mike, I’m sure many Americans have never been to 3rd world countries so they have no idea how a simple solution like bottle lights would improve life dramatically in the slums. Solar ovens are another fabulous idea to reduce the burning of wood for fuel and improve the health of the women cooking on wood fires/’stoves’.
I’m baffled by this comment. It leaves me thinking that you only quickly skimmed the comments and weren’t paying attention at all, or that you have very poor reading comprehension. The closest thing to “putting down this idea” that’s been expressed in any of these comments is that it’s a great improvement for these tin roofed shanties, but would be a poor choice for any modern construction due to the difficulty of keeping it sealed.
Forgive me if this was already mentioned:
You would NOT save electricity, you would actually use more, especially in a heating climate. See, you’d be punching an R-1 hole through your R-30+ roofing assembly and causing your heat rates to rise as heat escaped through this hole.
Best save these for your sheds, garages, and other non-insulated, non-finished areas. If I get around to installing some in my garage, I’ll send photos.
The UV light from the sun will break down the plastic in the cola bottles over a year or two, so they would need to be replaced often. Soft drink bottlers are trying to make their products more biodegradeable, not less. If they could use/find glass bottles or jars, that would take care of that.
It puzzles me that they have enough money for electricity and light bulbs, but not enough for a pane of glass or clear plastic for a skylight or window.
I love a good idea!
Great idea for this location and circumstance. If you are building a tiny house, shack or shed off the grid, it still might be a good idea as well,if it was leak proof. This could easily be done but it might not be too attractive. Solar tubes are nice but they are not cheap. Not sure how it would work if the water freezes or it the snow covers it up, but then snow can cover up solar tubes skylights as well. Wouldn’t hurt to try it in an outhouse. I enjoyed the companion piece where the same plastic bottles can be used for hot water, in a different array however.
guyz pls help
i need the INSTRUMENTS and ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH ABOUT SOLAR BOTTLE LIGTHS plss reply any1