In my last articles I outlined my fist experience with outdoor solar path lights and how I went on to add some accent lighting and solar spot lights. Well, it turns out that I was so happy with those projects that I decided to see what else was offered in the way of solar lighting.

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First of all, I need to tell you that I am a big fan of do-it-yourself projects. I come from a construction background and I am friends with most tools. Needless to say, I am always looking for ways to make my home better. Since I had just finished with all of my outdoor solar projects, I was looking for other projects along those lines. When I say that the project I found was a lot easier than I expected, it is not only because of my background. It really was easy. After doing some research, I ordered a solar skylight.

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I stumbled upon a link for solar skylights and I thought it looked kind of cool, but maybe a little pricey. It also looked like the kind of project that would be a bit of a challenge. Turns out that I was wrong on both accounts. After shopping around, I bought a very nice solar kit for a little over 0. Yep, 0!! It came with everything I needed, including templates (for cutting the holes). The manufacturer said that installation should take about 2-3 hours. They were actually wrong there. This is how the whole thing went:

When I got the package, I made sure that all the parts were there and that the flashing was correct for my roof. The flashing is important. It comes in flat and sloped roof varieties. It also came with templates for the roof cutout and the ceiling hole as well. The "light fixture" itself actually looked like a regular light fixture. You couldn't really tell that it was solar by looking at it.

The location I chose was the hall bathroom. This location was perfect because that bathroom had no exhaust fan and the existing lights were mounted on the wall above the mirror as opposed to the ceiling, which meant I could still use them. I picked a spot where I wanted the fixture to be and drove a nail through the ceiling sheet rock. I put some tape on the nail so it wouldn't fall and went into the attic crawl space. I pulled the insulation and found my nail. I used a makeshift plumb-bob to line my nail up with a spot on the underside of the roof and drove another nail up though the roof. Now, according to the instructions, the dome and fixture do not have to be exactly lined up, but the better they line up, the more light you get.

Next, I went up on the roof and found my nail. I removed some roof tiles and used the template to cut my hole in the roof with a jigsaw. I then set the dome, diffuser, and flashing in place. I went back into the attic and cut my hole in the ceiling for the fixture. From that point, I just needed to go back into the bathroom and mount the fixture, go back into the attic to attach the tubing from the dome assembly to the fixture, and screw in the dome flashing. I also decided to use some aluminum tape around the tube joints. Total installation time - 1 hour, 40 minutes! Now, my attic access is really close to that bathroom, so that helped reduce the installation time. I also used an orbital jig saw (Porter Cable) and an impact screw gun. Your results may vary.

So, the solar skylight is done, but how does it work? It works awesomely! Even on overcast days, it gives off a ton of light. In fact, that bathroom is brighter during the day than it used to be with the lights on! I want to put another one in the other bathroom to replace the light/fan that I have in there. I will need to put lights above the mirror though for night time.

The Solar Lights Experience Part 3 - Indoor Solar Skylights!

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