# Sunlight for a Basement Room



## prglor (May 30, 2007)

My wife wants me to finish a room for her in our unfinished basement. The problem is that she wants a window in her room and there are only two small windows in the basement and they are on the wrong side of the basement and will soon admit very little light because we are having a deck built over the top of them.

Our contractor tells us that installing a window would not be a good idea because there is not enough of the basement wall above ground so we'd have to dig down to install a window and window. We'd then have to remove a lot of soil on the lawn outside that wall which would be expensive and still have to worry about getting leakage into the basement in the future. Our basement is completely dry and we'd like to keep it that way and not do anything that might cause water problems.

I've thought about using a light pipe to get daylight into her room but there is no path to get light from the room down into the basement. I'm wondering if there is a way to use a light pipe to direct light from the sidewall into the basement? The sidewall does extend above the ground about a foot so if a light pipe can direct light around two 90-degree angles, it could be installed through the basement wall and then down through a suspended ceiling into the room. Is this doable?


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## Termite (Apr 13, 2008)

A sun tunnel will add light if there is light going into it, but on the side of the house I don't think the benefit would be worth the trouble. Can you talk her into some nice new can lights or something a little more "electric"?


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