Sun Tunnels

[witchywoohoo]

We have a very dark room in our house and we're thinking of getting a sun tunnel to let in some much needed natural light. Does anyone have any experience of them? I suppose I just want to make sure it is worth it - that we will get enough light from them. Cheers.

We are after the same for a long hallway in an extension on our house, and the ones Ive seen on programmes like Grand Designs have been amazing.
I would love to know if there are different appatures for the inside, or if they are all just circular. This is for our dining room which currently has sunlight through the sunroom, but we need to put on a proper roof so it will lose that.

I've seen some square ones little but i'm not sure what difference it makes to the amount of light coming through. I'd love to see some in real life before I make the decision to cut holes in my roof!

We have one in our utility room which doesn't have a window other than a half glazed external door. The room was originally a coal store with no window and just a solid door. Amazed by how light it now is. For the first month or so I would leave the room and switch the light off before realising that I'd just put the light on and that it was actually daylight. Even in the depths of winter.
We went for a velux one. The inside is just frosted plastic over the circular aperture. The tube is flexible one rather than rigid. The roof end is very neat and unobtrusive.

And yes you can get different sizes depending on the size of room. You need to take into account the gap between roof joists as that may constrain options. Love ours. When we do up our kitchen we will add one in there as it can be a bit dark in there.
Ours is on an east facing pitched roof.
The velux website had a calculator thing where you put in the room dimensions, roof aspect and pitch details and it suggests what you might need and how much light you will get. Found this very helpful do probably worth a look. Was very easy to install too.

Thanks Reed, that is so useful. I'll check out the velux website. You've also got me thinking that I should put another one in my utility room!

Its not about the amount of light. Its because I want them to come in on a wall not the ceiling and I think having square or rectangles would look better there. If you have a link for them, I would be most grateful

I can't find a uk link! There's this one from Aus which will give you an idea of what the square ones look like -

Square v. Round

We have one (installed at least 10 years ago) in a dark corridor. It has been wonderful but we are now wondering how we can get the roof-light section properly cleaned to let maximum light in, without putting anyone on the roof tiles to scrub it. It has developed a coating of algae or the like. Otherwise, no hesitation in recommending them. IIRC, ours is a Sun Pipe, but it lets in moonlight too when it's clear and bright.