ᐅ Daylighting the ground floor using a heliostat and fixed mirrors

The effect of sunlight is both a psychological and biological matter. For illuminating interior spaces, such as specially designed light wells functioning like natural daylight lamps, this works very well. However, outdoors, it does not work for most people. It does not noticeably brighten the area during the day because the diffuse scattered light from the atmosphere overwhelms the slightly diffuse reflective surface (since the goal is to create a broad light field rather than a focal point). The mirror’s surface is simply too small for the area to be illuminated. As mentioned, it works if sunlight is directed through a 1 square meter (approximately 10.8 square feet) mirror into a 1 square meter (approximately 10.8 square feet) light well with multiple frosted glass layers. But trying to brighten, say, a 25 square meter (approximately 269 square feet) garden area with a 1 square meter (approximately 10.8 square feet) mirror is not very effective. Larger mirrors are extremely susceptible to wind: the reflected light in the garden must not flicker.

Hello, good post. In our case, it is about the lighting of the living room, not the garden...

Okay. Then I misunderstood. So the blue circled area is for the second convex mirror?

Hello,

alexisan schrieb:

We are talking about the living room lighting, not the garden lighting...

Even though I find the idea of using a mirror quite charming and you probably don’t want to hear this:

I think you’re going down the wrong path!

Regardless of the cost and the likely difficulty in obtaining any building permit / planning permission for something like this, a 1 sqm (10.8 sq ft) mirror will not create a sunlit living room. Especially since this only works when the sun is shining. On the typical overcast autumn and winter days, this whole setup won’t help you at all.
I would assume that you will achieve much more with a well-designed lighting plan combined with _good_ lighting for the living room.
This can be professionally planned and installed. It does cost money, but significantly less than the 30,000 euros mentioned. And it works even on rainy and dark days...

Best regards,

Andreas

Is the house still in the planning stage? If so, wouldn’t it be better to include a light well in the design? Alternatively, wouldn’t retrofitting one also be a practical solution?

andimann schrieb:

I would assume that you can achieve significantly more in the living room with a really good lighting design along with _good_ lighting.

However, that’s not what the original poster is asking about. I’ve already been reprimanded for that.