Solar Reflector Prototype

Presenter: Jared Barak, Josie Baldner, Architecture

Skylights are a lovely addition to most rooms, but they are also major contributors to building heat loss in cold weather. Because glass is such a poor insulator, an improperly placed skylight can make a room retain heat poorly, resulting in a chilly space and an expensive utility bill. In an attempt to increase the solar penetration into one such room, a prototype solar reflector was constructed and placed above a skylit bathroom. Temperature and light intensity data collected from beneath the retrofit skylight indicated that the additional reflected sunlight significantly increased the brightness of the room, but had a negligible effect on the temperature. The study implies that reflecting additional sunlight through an existing aperture could make a skylight perform as if it were a larger skylight without any additional building heat loss.