One great way to improve your home's eco-efficiency - and our favorite way here at VELUX - is to bring more natural light into it through skylights.
In addition to adding to the overall aesthetic of your home, skylights are very effective in lowering the carbon footprint of your household in a sustainable way. Here's how:
When you install skylights, you're able to illuminate your home without being reliant on artificial lighting. To put it simply, skylights can help keep you from using so many light bulbs, which can take centuries to break down after they've been thrown out. When installed in the right place, a skylight can become the main source of light in that room. In the long run, this can reduce the amount of energy you use, helping save you money.
Skylights can also help control the temperature in your home naturally. Venting skylights can be opened to release hot, stale air trapped at the top of your ceilings, allowing fresh, cooler air to flow through your home. On the flip side, during cooler months, closed skylights allow heat from the sun's rays to come in, bringing some warmth into your home.
Of course, one of the main benefits of artificial lighting is that you can turn it off when you need. And maybe once upon a time, skylights weren't as easily controlled. But VELUX Skylights are different. Each is compatible with our extensive line of blinds, which feature styles from Venetian to Light-Filtering to Blackout so you have as much control over the light coming in through your skylight as necessary.
Blinds not only help with light control, but they can also help with the amount of solar heat transferring through your skylight. If things start to feel a little too hot under your skylight, simply lower the blinds to help block out heat. And if you spring for VELUX ACTIVE with NETATMO, your blinds will automatically adjust to help control the temperature in your home.
Another way to stay in control of the light with skylights is to install them at exactly the right angle. The angle of a skylight greatly affects how much light comes into a room. A local VELUX installer can help you decide just how you want a skylight positioned, but a good rule of thumb to remember is that the flatter it's installed, the more light and heat will come into the room.
Light control is not only important when it comes time to read a book, watch a movie, or entertain guests. It also helps make your home more energy-efficient and eco-friendly since you don't need to rely on electricity to keep your home well-lit and at a comfortable temperature.
Natural light is an excellent resource for ensuring sustainability in your home. After all is said and done, installing a skylight lowers your energy consumption, reduces household waste, and naturally cools, warms, and illuminates your home. And these benefits not only make your home a more vibrant and comfortable place to be, they also help reduce your environmental impact over time.