[Greenbuilding] basement daylighting

[Topher]

On 8/3/2013 1:39 PM, Brian Milani wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> We will be working on a nice basement exercise/meditation room with 
> only two small windows.
> What's worse is that one of the windows opens to the crawl space of 
> the front porch.
> We need to replace this rotting porch and would like to find some way 
> of building it to allow daylight to get to the basement window below.
>
> Some have suggested putting a big grate in the porch deck.  Others 
> have suggested tempered glass or plexiglass.  Others have suggested 
> something like a light tube or an updated version of a deck prism. The 
> porch is covered but exposed to the elements.

I recently saw a Passivhaus home up in snow country which had a grate on 
the porch, under the drip edge of the roof.  I thought it was a cool 
detail.  Many ski resorts have that sort of thing to encourage snow off 
the boots, in the place of doormats.

I like the idea of deck prism, but they are designed to put a bit of 
light in the area, you would want all the light to be directed through 
the window, so some redesigning would be necessary. Manufacturing that 
(as a one-off) might be costly.  I have seen a solar powered 'glass' 3D 
printer, but it was not making clear glass.


Thank You Kindly,

Corwyn

-- 
Topher Belknap
Green Fret Consulting
Kermit didn't know the half of it...
http://www.GreenFret.com/
topher at greenfret.com