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Sources of Light

Max out on natural light – from skylights

We’ve been saying it for years: skylights give you more than 40% more natural light than dormer or façade windows. But we were wrong. The latest studies show that skylights provide at least twice as much light. But that isn’t all. The quality of light is better too. Skylights disperse light over a wider area with a greater variation in intensity, depending on the moods of the sky.

A recent report* compared the light quality in different rooms lit by equally-sized façade, dormer and skylight windows. Analysts created a large number of virtual rooms using the well-established Radiance Lighting Simulation System (Ward Larson & Shakespeare, 1998).

* Danish Building Research Institute (SBI): “An assessment of daylight quality in simple rooms – Impact of three window configurations on daylight conditions, Phase 2,” June 2006

Façade window
daylight factor = 1.41%
 
Daylight factor1

Dormer window
daylight factor = 0.85%

Daylight factor2
Skylight
daylight factor = 2.86%

Daylight factor3