Every house has at least one room that never gets light. Usually it is an internal hallway, a bathroom with no external wall, a laundry, a walk-in robe or a stairwell. The light goes on at nine in the morning and stays on all day, and nobody thinks about it because the alternative has always been a builder cutting a hole through the roof.
An LED solar skylight removes that trade-off. It is not a window. It is a high output LED fitting in the ceiling, driven by a small solar panel on the roof, connected by one thin cable. From inside the room it looks and behaves like a skylight. From the roof it is a panel the size of a dinner plate.
How they actually work
The roof panel collects sunlight and runs the LED directly. The brighter it is outside, the brighter the fitting is inside, which is why the effect reads as daylight rather than as a light that happens to be on. There is no inverter, no connection to your switchboard and no circuit to protect, because the whole thing is a self-contained low voltage system.
Most of the units we fit also carry a small battery. That stores surplus generation during the day so the same fitting works as a normal ceiling light at night, usually on a wall switch, sometimes on a remote.
The important part is what is not there. No roof penetration for a light shaft, no framing, no plasterboard patching, no flashing to fail in ten years, and nothing added to your power bill.
Solar skylight or traditional skylight?
A traditional skylight or light tube is a hole through your roof and ceiling with a reflective shaft between them. It gives you genuine daylight and, done properly, it works well. It also brings the problems that come with a hole in your roof.
Where a traditional skylight wins
- You want a view of the sky, not just light
- The room is directly under the roof with a short, straight run to the ceiling
- You want maximum daylight in a large living space
Where a solar skylight wins
- There is no straight path from roof to ceiling — a second storey, ductwork, a truss or a bulkhead in the way
- Summer heat gain matters. A shaft brings heat in with the light; an LED does not
- You want it done in a couple of hours with no roof trades, no patching and no leak risk
- The room also needs to be lit at night, which a traditional skylight cannot do
- You are in a rental or strata property where roof work is difficult to get approved
On the coast, the heat argument carries real weight. A west-facing light shaft is a pleasant feature in July and a liability in January.
What you get for the money
A solar skylight costs more than a standard LED downlight and much less than cutting in a traditional skylight, because there is no carpenter, no roof plumber and no ceiling repair. The running cost is nil. For a hallway light that would otherwise burn ten hours a day, that adds up quietly over the life of the fitting.
The specification worth paying attention to is lumen output. Cheap units are dim enough that you will still reach for the switch, which defeats the purpose. We quote on fittings that genuinely light the room, and we will tell you if the room you have in mind is too big for one unit to do the job on its own.
Choosing the right fitting
- Output, matched to the room rather than to the lowest price
- Battery backup, if you want night time use on a wall switch
- Colour temperature, with selectable models letting you match the rest of your lighting
- Dimmability, which matters more in bedrooms and robes than in a laundry
- Panel placement, ideally north facing and clear of shade from trees or an upper roof line
What the install involves
For a typical single storey house it is a half day job and usually less. We confirm where the fitting will land in the ceiling and where the panel can sit on the roof with good sun, fix the panel, run the cable through the roof space, cut in the fitting, and commission it. If you want it switched for night use, we wire the switch at the same time.
Rooms with no ceiling access, two storey homes and tiled roofs all change the method, which is why we look at the roof space before quoting rather than pricing it over the phone.
Where they work best
The pattern we see most often is a client calling about one dark hallway and ending up doing three rooms, because the hallway result is obvious the moment it is switched on. Bathrooms, laundries, internal stairwells, pantries, robes and garages are all strong candidates. So are extensions where the new roof line has left an original room landlocked.
If you are already planning other work, this is a cheap thing to add while we are on site. It pairs naturally with a halogen to LED conversion, and it is worth raising early if you are planning the electrical for a renovation, because the panel location is easier to get right before the roof is finished.
See our LED solar skylight installation service for what is included, or look at the rest of our electrical services if you are weighing up a few jobs at once. If reducing your power bill is the real goal, our notes on whether solar is worth it cover the bigger version of the same idea.
Got a room that never gets light?
Tell us which room and we will tell you whether a solar skylight suits it, how many fittings it needs, and what it costs installed. Fixed price before we start.
Written by Scott Gross, licensed electrician and founder of PMU Electrical, servicing the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane. Licence 146529.