Solar tubes/tunnels (West: how much, homes, living)

[Florinator]

Does anyone have any experience with solar tubes? My kitchen is in the middle of the floorplan and has no windows. Next to it, the living room has large windows, but it faces North, so we don't get a lot of natural light inside and I've been thinking about ways to improve this. I've been looking at solar tubes on the internet, but I'd like to hear someone's first-hand feedback. I wonder how much light I could get from one tube, or whether I should consider two...

[10scoachrick]

What's above the area where the 'light' would be installed? I'm not crazy about more holes in the roof than necessary; but DW's clients have them in some newer and some older homes. On a sunny day, it's like having a 300 watt incandescent fixture on the ceiling. YMMV and all that.

[Florinator]

I just checked and it's not looking great... My only option is the North facing side of the roof. It would be just a few feet from the top, but still, I don't feel like looking North for sunlight :-)

I have a big playroom above the kitchen, so I could only bring the tubes down to a 4-5 ft edge of the kitchen ceiling and even that would be tricky, because this area is right under the spot where the North side of the roof meets the East and West ones. I'd prefer going with the rigid tubes, because they are more reflective, as opposed to the flexible ones, but it doesn't look like I can...

[Komeht]

I have them - they bring a tremendous amount of light into the center stairwell - so much so that we rarely, if ever, use lights during the day.

As for leak issues - none if properly installed. These are not the same thing as sky lights which are notoriously known for leaks.

As for placement - I'm pretty sure they can direct the tube just about anywhere since the tube itself does not need to be vertical.